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Library of Che Theological Seminary 
PRINCETON - NEW JERSEY 
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PRESENTED BY 
The Estate of the 
Rev. John B, Wiedinger 


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*rinceton Theological eary Library 


OTHER BOOKS BY MR. BOREHAM 


A BUNCH OF EVERLASTINGS 
A CASKET OF CAMEOS 

A HANDFUL OF STARS 

A REEL OF RAINBOW 

FACES IN THE FIRE 

THE GOLDEN MILESTONE 
THE HOME OF THE ECHOES 
THE LUGGAGE OF LIFE 
MOUNTAINS IN THE MIST 
MUSHROOMS ON THE MOOR 
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL 
RUBBLE AND ROSELEAVES 
SHADOWS ON THE WALL 
THE SILVER SHADOW 

THE UTTERMOST STAR 
WISPS OF WILDFIRE 





/BYy 
F. W. BOREHAM 





THE ABINGDON PRESS 
NEW YORK CINCINNATI 


Copyright, 1925, by 
F. W. BOREHAM 


All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, 
including the Scandinavian 


Printed in the United States of America 


CONTENTS 


Part I 
CHAPTER PAGE 
BYowAy OF INTRODUCTION. isi.s Josninled- 7 
Pee OOTLIGHTS (ia iste lle ciet ects vat oe iI 
DES OOK GUTS hot B's sels tebe rir aliitie sNolcte rer Gr vedeate 22 
ULAR ANE Sr ririns erate a uivrn ee a fg! oman reun, Bye 
Hye CEST Tye Wey ae EDEAEV INP raven ght cer ays bit CR MN de 43 
We Ay BASKET OR BOMBSHELLS ()).'. 3.40 aoe 54 
EOE IVIOR NINGIONEIND Serge). ectele aie ee tepelens tate aace 64 
Mitre WAM AND JJBCEMBER (281000 lecstiaten sas 74 
PPid eee He AV) TREPULLER tos tics alan eae eta ae es 86 

Part IT 
PLR ORD OFU LOUTH AS cess, ae tea 99 
MRE STOCK MANGE et isle gic eisie eta tiaiete Maas 110 
PRUE! VAD YT OROTHE VIIAKE), deletes 1 filet atte 121 
Fy ALU POOLS NAV Merwe Cae wa grates eae Ba4 
NOMS INCH ess Meets Met evoye di oe a Maratea! meee 142 
RACE e RISK Vin OATH eat ken utes ou ike ses) aes 1st 
VII. THe Cuckoo IN THE Rosins’ NEST...... 162 
ahd ee EOMP TY CORB (Louie watenst hyn ale: 2's\e/~ lnilele 173 

Part III 
DAR EPA TRS INLONE Viti ces tate areca eon sta tle eee acetal 187 
CLE MPiy) PITCHERS viel ce wal, aietenemie eh ee 198 
IM TMRIIR BELLIS EE Cee raccYe res eerie ey ene tla Leo vot ale yalopa leg die 206 
TVELOUIVER, (OPREADBUR Via tie's)c)s/ ia a0sts ae elalaeie 217 
Vint HED bh OISONED, OPRING sls satese sles Warsi sibel p 229 
RELIC TRS EON tee tt A Stn O A ie Clary tlle ERAN, overs 240 
Mie RHE IN OONDAY, (rHOST yo). an cuclevetshacte ie nct 5s 250 
AL EIN E, VO NAGAR Sp LIA sacaus ateah siete etn oe die ele haPote « 260 





BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION 


CRUISING, some yeats ago, across the Southern 
Ocean, we encountered ice in latitudes in which, at 
that time of the year, ice is seldom seen. For 
some hours we were entirely surrounded by it. 
A few of us, gathered in the stern after dusk, were 
amusing ourselves by speculating, in an amateurish 
kind of way, as to the points of the compass and 
the bearings of the ship. The problem was sud- 
denly solved. Piercing the gloom about us, two 
bright points of light gleamed over the virgin 
shoulder of one of the bergs, looking as cold and 
glassy as the ice itself. 

‘The Pointers!’ exclaimed one member of the 
party, pointing to them; and, surely enough, in a few 
moments, the Southern Cross itself burst upon our 
view, looking, in those seas, particularly splendid. 

Everybody in these Austral lands knows the 
Pointers. Strictly speaking, they are no part of the 
Southern Cross; but they point to it: and he who 
catches sight of them looks wistfully for the glitter- 
ing Cross itself. 

Somehow, this experience of years ago rushes 
back upon my mind as I lift my pen from these 
pages. The papers that I have written possess no 
value of importance of their own; but they point 


7 


8 By Way of Introduction 


to things that no man can afford to miss: that is 
their only glory. 
FRANK W. BOREHAM. 
ARMADALE, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA. 
Faster, 1925. 


Pek Lieb 





I 
THE FOOTLIGHTS 


Tue best of a railway train is that you never 
know where it will take you. You fancy, when you 
purchase your ticket, that you have a fairly shrewd 
idea as to your destination; but, nine times out of 
ten, when you look back upon the journey after- 
wards, you find that your preliminary conjecture 
was absurdly inaccurate. You expected the train 
to convey you to another town; as soon as it got 
possession of you it whisked you into another world. 
An experience of this kind befell me only last 
week. 

I was on my way to Adelaide. At least, that 
was my impression when I visited the booking- 
office and boarded the express. There were only 
two of us in the compartment. I spent the first 
half-hour in trying to decipher the life-story of 
my companion. Who is he? What is he? Where 
does he come from? Where is he going? It 1s 
always a fascinating—and humiliating—business. 
After devious intellectual processes of exclusion 
and deduction, you invariably reach finality at last, 
and, as invariably, discover five minutes later that 
you are about as far from the truth as you could 


If 


12 The Crystal Pointers 


very well be. After carefully inspecting everything 
that could throw a ray of light on the mystery 
that I had undertaken to solve, I came to the con- 
clusion that the gentleman in the opposite corner 
was either a clergyman or an undertaker. Giving 
him the benefit of the doubt, I was proceeding to 
speculate as to his ecclesiastical status and denomi- 
national connections, when my task was brought to 
an abrupt conclusion by the discovery that he was 
a well-known actor, whose grotesque appearances in 
light comedy kept his crowded audiences in ceaseless 
convulsions of laughter. Now, if there was a world 
of which I knew absolutely nothing at all—a terra 
mcognita—a realm that I had never invaded—it 
was the stage. Here, to my delight, I found an 
opportunity of exploring it. I smiled at my short- 
sighted stupidity in supposing when I bought my 
ticket, that I was merely on my way to Adelaide. 

‘The thing that one has to remember,’ he said, 
in one of the confidential outbursts with which he 
favored me during that long and delightful evening, 
‘the thing that one has to remember, and the thing 
that an actor is most tempted to forget, is that 
reality lies on the other side of the footlights.’ He 
went on to explain that the actor, in playing his 
part, is hedged in by four sharply defined boun- 
daries. Behind him is the scenery at the back of 
the stage: on either side are the wings: and in front 
of him is the glare of the footlights. 

‘I daresay,’ he continued, ‘that some actors and 


The Footlights 13 


actresses can see the public to whom they are play- 
ing; but, unfortunately, my eyes are not as strong 
as I could wish’—he wiped his pince-nez as he 
spoke—‘and to me the theatre beyond the footlights 
is a huge black vault. The footlights dazzle me. I 
sometimes fancy that I am apt to ignore the 
thousands of eyes that are fixed so intently upon 
me: I am prone to forget the hearts that, out there 
in the void, are beating in sympathy with the part 
that I am endeavoring to portray. And, mark my 
words, as surely as an actor forgets the invisible 
multitude on the other side of the footlights, he 
will lose touch with reality. The tendency to arti- 
ficiality will prove too strong for him. A subtle 
falsetto will creep into his voice, and a suspicion of 
affectation will mark all his behavior. As soon as 
that happens, first-class work will be impossible: he 
can never rise above mediocrity. But as long as 
he remains conscious—or even subconscious—of the 
real men and real women on the other side of the 
footlights, it will help to correct any such tendency. 
He will feel that he is among realities and not among 
shadows: he will talk as real men talk and will act 
as real men act. And only thus can success be 
achieved in our profession or in any other.’ 

Since returning from Adelaide, I have thought 
and spoken a good deal of that conversation in the 
train. I mentioned it at the fireside on Tuesday 
evening. Kenneth Salisbury was spending the eve- 
ning with us. 


14 The Crystal Pointers 


‘Why,’ exclaimed Ken, ‘it reminds me of a book 
I’ve been reading. I'll send it along to-morrow 
morning.’ 

He did. It is entitled The Fourth Dimension, 
and is by Horace A. Vachell. It is a story of actors 
and actresses: a romance of the stage. But it is 
written to show that the contention of my friend 
in the train is sound. The whole point of the book 
is that, to the actor, the stage appears to be a 
universe of three dimensions—the scenery behind 
and the wings on either side. He is apt to forget 
the fourth dimension. For the fourth dimension, 
according to Mr. Vachell, is the throbbing mass of 
real life on the other side of the footlights. In the 
development of the story, the husband’s health 
collapses and he is compelled to leave the stage. 
He retires to Dartmoor and writes a powerful play. 
His wife continues her brilliant career. But one 
day she hears that his illness has taken a much 
more serious turn. She hastens to his side. She 
sees at once that the sickness must be a long one. 
Shall she leave him and go back to her profession? 
or shall she relinquish her dazzling prospects and 
devote herself to him? He notices that, although 
the days are passing, she is still nursing him. 

‘This means your leaving the stage,’ he says. 

‘T have left it, Cherry,’ she replies, with a smile. 
‘There are only three sides to it; and, you see, I 
can’t do without the fourth side—life! Father was 
right, after all: we Yeos are not mummers. And, 


The Footlights 15 


in our stolid, obstinate way, we know what we 
want. I want you! 

And so, in the last analysis, she found the fourth 
dimension better than all the other three put together. 

But the thing that struck me most, during our 
conversation in the train, was the fact that my 
companion made it clear that his remarks applied, 
not only to his own profession, but to all. ‘Only 
as far as we keep in touch with neh es he said, 
‘can any of us hope to achieve success.’ Clearly, 
the temptation to forget the fourth dimension is no 
monopoly of the actor’s. If it be true that the 
actor tends to become artificial, it 1s no less true 
that the minister tends to become cloistral, the poet 
fanciful, the philosopher hypothetical, the scientist 
chimerical, the schoolmaster theoretical, and the 
artist technical. Breaking on the shore of every 
life there is an undertow that threatens to sweep a 
man off his feet .and carry him away from the 
practical, the actual, the real. He who can hold 
his own against that insidious tendency is not Lae 
to fall far short of high success. 

Did my companion know, I wonder, that he was 
talking to a minister? I am not sure. I only know 
that any man is a public benefactor who helps us 
ministers to keep our feet on the ground. It is so 
easy to lose our way among the stars. The pulpit 
is very much like the stage after all. We are apt 
to think of it as a thing of three dimensions. We 
forget the realities. We lose touch with real men 


16 The Crystal Pointers 


and real women and real life. It was said of a cer- 
tain eminent divine that he was invisible all the week 
and incomprehensible on Sundays. The one is the 
inevitable result of the other. The minister who 
gets out of touch with men will soon forget how 
to speak their language. He will speak a language 
of his own, and nobody else will understand it. Too 
often we ministers call our people indifferent, and 
all the time they think, with perfect justice, that 
the boot is on the other foot. It is we who are 
indifferent. We pursue the even tenor of our dreamy 
way—dogmatic, idealistic, evangelistic—and we 
appear to them to be like summer sailors gliding 
over shimmering seas, whilst they are fighting their 
fearful way through black tempests and cruel storms. 
There is no place in all the wide, wide world like 
the pulpit. But the pulpit is no place for any of us 
unless we are prepared to fathom, and appreciate, 
and grapple with, the pathos and the tragedy of those 
real problems and difficulties and riddles that are 
harassing the minds of so many of our hearers. 
When men are in the throes and agonies of the ter- 
rible temptations which start out of their domestic, 
social, and commercial relationships, it is not enough 
to answer this plea for help with the cheap plati- 
tudes of theological technique. Our Master took 
upon Himself real flesh and real blood that He 
might appeal convincingly to real men and real 
women. Of all men, a minister can least afford to 
lose touch with the fourth dimension. Let him— 


The Footlights 17 


a creature of flesh and blood—cultivate the friend- 
ship of flesh and blood! Let him get to know men: 
let him take pains to understand women: let him 
laugh with the young people and romp with the 
children! Let him beware of taking his theology too 
strong! He must dilute it liberally with plenty of 
histories, plenty of biographies, plenty of novels— 
anything that will keep him in touch with the throb- 
bing, pulsing mass of life on the other side of the 
footlights. 

Personally, I have a great deal of sympathy with 
my friend in the train. Every Sunday evening I 
address a congregation that I can only dimly see. 
The moment I rise to address them, all the lights in 
the church go out, except the fierce lights over the 
pulpit. Their brightness blinds me to everything 
beyond them. I look, as the actor does, into a huge 
black vault; but I know that the vault is teeming with 
life. I can see a few rows of faces just around me; 
and they remind me of the hundreds of faces that 
I cannot see. And this always seems to me to be 
an allegory. For has not every preacher an invisible 
congregation? Dr. J. D. Jones, of Bournemouth, 
has a fine sermon based on the story of the prisoners 
at Philippi listening in their separate cells to the 
songs and prayers of Paul and Silas. ‘At every 
service, Dr. Jones declares, ‘there is a dim, unseen, 
listening throng,’ and he proceeds to particularize 
and enumerate these invisible worshippers. 

(1) There is the multitude of the redeemed. 


18 The Crystal Pointers 


‘When,’ the doctor says, ‘some tiny church in an 
obscure village meets to pray, all the hosts of ran- 
somed people meet with it. The whole redeemed © 
Church of Christ is here every time we meet.’ 

(2) There are the crowds outside. Dr. Jones 
maintains that they are not really outside. ‘These 
people,’ he says, ‘are not unreached. I see multi- 
tudes on the fringe of this congregation hearing 
with you and through you. How they watch for 
the effect of this service upon you!’ 

(3) There are the generations yet unborn. ‘Pos- 
terity,’ he says, ‘is simply the invisible congregation, 
sitting a little farther down the aisle.’ 

(4) And there is the Lord Himself. “No congre- 
gation is small that has Him in the midst of it.’ 

Dr. Jones did not, under this last head, cite that 
exquisite gem of spiritual autobiography which 
Dr. A. J. Gordon has given us under the title How 
Christ came to Church. But he must have thought 
of it. After Dr. Gordon dreamed, that memorable 
Saturday night, that he saw Jesus enter the build- 
ing and sit silently in the congregation, the church 
was never the same again. When I peer into the 
darkness beyond the pulpit lights, I like to think 
that He is there. It is a great inspiration—and a 
great restraint. 

The railway compartment to which I have 
referred was occupied by an actor and a minister. 
That chance circumstance has led me to apply all 
my remarks to actors and ministers. But let nobody 


The Footlights 19 


conclude, on that account, that such observations 
are only applicable to the pulpit and the stage. As 
my friend the comedian so forcibly declared, the 
necessity for recognizing the invisible spectators 
affects us all. Each of us is the cynosure of more 
eyes than he suspects. Paul knew that. He told 
his converts that they were like letters—open letters 
—read and known of all men. The passage always 
reminds me of a famous story in the Life of Francis 
d@’ Assist. ‘Brother,’ Francis said one day to one of 
the young monks at the Portiuncula, ‘let us go down 
to the town and preach!’ The novice, delighted at 
being signalled out to be the companion of Francis, 
obeyed with alacrity. They passed through the prin- 
cipal streets; turned down many of the by-ways and 
alleys; made their way out to some of the suburbs; 
and at length returned, by a circuitous route, to the 
monastery gate. As they approached it, the younger 
man reminded Francis of his original intention. 

‘You have forgotten, Father,’ he said, ‘that we 
went down to the town to preach?’ 

‘My son,’ Francis replied, ‘we have preached. 
We were preaching while we were walking. We 
have been seen by many; our behavior has been 
closely watched; it was thus that we preached our 
morning sermon. It is of no use, my son, to walk 
anywhere to preach unless we preach everywhere as 
we walk!’ 

That, I imagine, is what Paul means when he 
refers to his converts as letters—open letters— 


20 The Crystal Pointers 


letters that everybody can read. If their perusal 
awakens in the reader pleasant thoughts, the credit 
will be given, not so much to them as to Him 
whose name they bear. And if, on the other hand, 
the reading of those living epistles conveys an unfor- 
tunate impression, it is not the jetters, but the 
writer of the letters, who will be censured, criticized, 
and blamed. 

I have not seen my friend, the actor, since: 
never, indeed, expect to see him again in this world. 
But I like to think that on ships and trams, he is 
chatting with other travellers, reminding them of 
the realities on the other side of the footlights. I 
remember passing a theatre one night just as the 
people were streaming out. I stood and watched 
them: I could not help it. I could see at a glance 
what was happening in every case. These people 
were coming back to life. One girl’s eyes were 
red with weeping; but, in the lamplight of the busy 
street, she smiled to think that she had been crying 
over shadows. She had come back to reality once 
more. We all need the actor’s sage philosophy. 
Like him, we all get dazzled by the glare. Beyond 
the footlights everything seems dark, and we forget 
the teeming life that the darkness conceals. We are 
all tempted to imagine that the things on which all 
the lights are streaming are the substances, and that 
the invisible things are merely shadows. ‘The actor 
knows better. The actor thinks of the fourth dimen- 
sion. He is conscious of the unseen throng. Like 


The Footlights 21 


Paul, he looks, not at the things which are seen, but 
at the things which are not seen, for the things 
which are seen are temporal, but the things which 
are not seen are eternal. The queen of the stage 
is a queen for an hour: but the living creatures on 
the other side of the footlights will live and move 
and have their being when her ephemeral queenliness 
is all forgotten. 

I am glad, very glad, that I met the actor in 
the train. He has something to teach me. He has 
recalled me from the artificialities to the realities of 
life. His eyes seem to me to be like those of which 
Edwin Arnold sings: 

Eyes deep and wistful, as of those who drink 
Waters of hidden wisdom, night and day, 
And live twain lives, conforming as they may, 
In diligence and due observances, 

To ways of men; yet not at one with these, 


But ever straining past the things that seem 
To that which is—the Truth behind the Dream! 


That is very expressive—‘eyes straining past the 
Things that Seem to That which Is—the Truth 
behind the Dream!’ The actor who can teach me to 
fix my attention upon such things may spend his life 
among shadows; but he has brought mine into touch 
with the most radiant realities in this world or in 
any other. 


II 
POCKETS 


Man is incorrigibly addicted to pockets. It is more 
than a mania; it is an instinct. Pockets are second 
nature to him. He is essentially a beast of burden; 
and, unlike all other creatures of that kind, he is 
a beast of burden, not from compulsion, but from 
choice. He is a born carrier, and any contrivance 
that will harness him to his load is entirely to his 
liking. In centuries to come, fashions may change 
as they will; but man and his pockets will never 
be parted. Now this is particularly notable, for, 
around this question of pockets, the fiercest fight 
of the ages has raged. Thoughtless people, judg- 
ing things superficially, hastily assume that life’s 
most desperate struggle is the struggle between those 
who have empty pockets and those who have full 
ones. They are mistaken. The longest and most 
determined conflict that the world has ever known 
is the conflict between those who have pockets and 
those who have none. That deadly combat has been 
in progress since the world began, and it still rages 
furiously. So far, the result is by no means decisive. 
On some fronts the pockets have been completely 
victorious; on others they have been utterly van- 
22 


Pockets 23 


quished. In the case of man himself, the victory 
lies with the pockets. Civilization, with its myriad 
pockets, has almost exterminated the barbarism that 
boasted no pockets at all. We must not, however, 
lay too much stress on this isolated triumph. In 
the fields and the forests the same grim struggle 
has been waged, and, with scarcely an exception, 
the pockets have been put to confusion. | 

In the land in which it is my good fortune to 
live, nearly all the animals are provided with 
pockets. Our native rats and native mice, our native 
wolves and native bears, our native cats and native 
squirrels, our wallabies and our kangaroos, our 
wombats and our bandicoots, our ant-eaters and 
our opossums, are, together with a number of other 
varieties, all of them marsupials. They make up a 
remarkable collection, and are one of the wonders 
of the world. Differing radically in many respects, 
they nevertheless agree in this one. Some of them 
prowl, some of them jump, some of them climb, 
some of them dive and some of them fly. Some are 
savage as tigers and some are as harmless as kittens. 
Some sleep in the daytime; some sleep in the night. 
Some are vegetarians; some are insectivorous; some 
are carnivorous. Some are terrestrial; some are 
arboreal; some are aquatic. But, dissimilar as they 
may be in these respects, they all have pouches. 
That is the peculiarity that interests me at this 
moment. For better or for worse, Nature has fur- 
nished our Australian fauna with pockets. 


24 The Crystal Pointers 


But pockets generate pride. It is a great day 
in a boy’s life when, for the first time, he wears 
a suit that is fitted out with pockets. It is to him 
what the day of its entering the water is to a duck- 
ling. He feels that he has come to his own. He 
cannot leave those pockets alone, cannot keep his 
hands out of them. He spends half his time com- 
mitting his treasures to those capacious pockets of 
his, and rummaging among the miscellaneous con- 
tents of those pockets to get his treasures out again. 
When, in some golden moment, he chances to meet 
a boy who has not yet attained to the mature dignity 
of pockets, he takes an unholy delight in parading 
his splendor; and, in the persons of those two 
boys, the old feud of Pockets and No-Pockets 
assumes a new form. A boy is as proud of his 
pockets as he will ever be of their wealthiest con- 
tents. Now, lest the furry creatures of our Aus- 
tralian bush should—like this small boy of ours— 
be exalted above measure at finding themselves 
possessed of pockets, the scientists have told them 
bluntly that their peculiarity is nothing to brag 
about. Their pockets are the badge of their 
inferiority. 

There was a time, so these scholars say, when 
practically all the animals had pockets. The whole 
world was overrun by marsupials. All went well 
until the placentals—the beasts without pockets— 
began to multiply and assert themselves. Then came 
the struggle between Pockets and No-Pockets; and 


Pockets 25 


No-Pockets won. ‘On perusing the stony annals 
of the world’s history,’ says Richard Semon, the 
naturalist, ‘we see that the higher the organization 
of placentals becomes, and the more they spread 
and gain in numbers, the more do their forefathers, 
the primitively and less perfectly constructed mar- 
supials, begin to diminish, getting rarer and rarer 
until they finally die out completely.’ Something 
of the same kind has happened in Australia. Years 
ago, long before white men settled on this conti- 
nent, the blacks brought dogs here. The dogs ran 
wild and became dingoes of to-day. The dingoes 
—hbeasts without pockets—felt it incumbent upon 
them to renew the ancient feud, and they swiftly 
exterminated some of the marsupials that they 
found here. Wherever the dingo goes, his carniv- 
orous native rivals tend to extinction. In the 
fierce fight for food, the fittest alone survive: the 
feebler forms go to the wall. Hence it comes 
about that on the adjacent island of Tasmania, 
where the dingo never obtained a footing, creatures 
like the Tasmanian devil and the Tasmanian tiger 
persist, although, on the mainland, they have long 
since disappeared. But I need say no more. It is 
clear that, on every continent, and in every age, 
a grim and relentless warfare has been raging 
between the creatures that have pockets and the 
creatures that have none. And, among the animals, 
the creatures with no pockets have won. 

A fearful and wonderful thing is a pocket! I 


26 The Crystal Pointers 


have seen the mother of eight boys settling down, 
on a Saturday night, to her formidable task of 
mending and patching. As she takes up each 
garment in turn, she carefully empties the pockets. 
And what a revelation it is! She pretends to be 
horrified: she is secretly proud. She likes to admire 
the ingenuity with which her boys contrive to pack 
their pockets with all the paraphernalia of boyish 
experience and adventure. And when, in process 
of time, these boys of hers hatch out into full- 
grown men, that cunning will by no means forsake 
them. The contents of a man’s pockets are as 
curious as the contents of a museum. When a 
man, in changing his clothes, transfers his goods 
and chattels from one set of pockets to another, 
he should have a good look at the odds and ends 
that he habitually carries. What would a South 
Sea Islander make of this heterogeneous assort- 
ment? Here, to begin with, is his purse—a pocket 
within a pocket! How would he explain to the 
South Sea Islander the mystery of money? How 
would he make it clear to the brawny savage that 
the small white money is of more value than the 
big brown money, and that the soiled and crumpled 
paper-money is the most precious of all? Then, 
again, here is his watch! How, I wonder, will he 
make the barbarian understand our system of 
numerals, our divisions of time into hours and 
minutes; and, when he has succeeded in this, how 
will he initiate him into the mechanical subtleties 


Pockets 27 


by means of which the watch knows the time— 
and tells it? Out from the opposite pocket comes 
a pencil! The hocus-pocus of the medicine man is 
simplicity itself compared with this! How can this 
little stick talk? It is bewildering in the extreme. 
Viewed as a jingling ornament, suitable for hang- 
ing on a woman’s ear, the white man’s bunch of 
keys will be the first object to awaken the black 
man’s enthusiasm; but, when the real uses of the 
shining trinkets are elaborated, the unhappy islander 
will again plunge into an ocean of bewilderment. 
Not until the powers of the pocket-knife are 
exhibited will the native be sure of the sanity of 
the paleface. A knife was the first thing that the 
first man needed. His first toy, his first tool, his 
first weapon, was the branch of a tree. But how 
was he to sever the bough from the trunk? It was 
a laborious business. A knife would have made 
all the difference! The average man carries centuries 
of inventive ingenuity in his pockets without know- 
ing it. The contents of his pockets represent the 
condensed essence of civilization. 

They may easily represent more. They may 
represent the condensed essence of eternity. I have 
myself carried six complete Bibles in one waistcoat 
pocket! They were thumb-nail editions of course; 
the paper was extremely thin and the type extremely 
small: but there it was! I held the entire sacred 
library, six times over, in my smallest pocket! “Eng- 
lish Christians,’ says Archbishop Alexander, ‘are 


28 The Crystal Pointers 


agreed about this: they place the Bible in the 
soldier’s knapsack, in the sailor’s chest, in the emi- 
grant’s trunk, among the presents of the bride and 
in the coffin of the dead.’ That is true; but the 
wonder is that such receptacles are large enough 
to contain it. I reflect that certain Oriental religions 
need a caravan of camels for the conveyance of 
their sacred books! And here we have ours, six 
times over, in a pocket! We recall the classical 
tribute which, in his Short History of the English 
People, Green pays to the transformation effected 
by the coming of the Bible. ‘No greater moral 
change ever passed over a nation,’ he says. ‘Eng- 
land became the people of a book, and that book 
the Bible. As a mere literary monument, the Eng- 
lish version of the Bible remains the noblest 
example of the English tongue, while its perpetual 
use made it, from the instant of its appearance, the 
standard of our language. Its literary effect was, 
however, less than its social; and, by far the greatest 
of all, was its effect on the character of the people 
at large. One dominant influence told on human 
action. ‘The whole temper of the nation felt the 
change. A new conception of life, a new moral 
and religious impulse, spread through every class.’ 
And the book that can achieve such miracles of 
historic achievement is so compact that my pocket 
can easily contain it! What is the condensed 
essence of civilization compared with this? 

I recall to-day one of the earliest incidents of 


Pockets 29 


which my memory has preserved a record. It must 
belong to that remote antiquity that preceded even 
my schooldays. We had about the place a man 
named Bridger. He attended to the garden and did 
all sorts of odd jobs. He and I were great chums. 
Having no brother or sister older than myself, I 
spent a good deal of my time in his company. As 
soon as my father set out for his office, I set out 
to ‘help Bridger.’ In the course of the day I 
discussed with Bridger all questions in the earth 
and out of it. I am afraid that Bridger traded 
a little on my childish credulity. I can remember 
lying awake at night puzzling over the wonders 
of which he told me. The tragedy that so indelibly 
impressed my memory occurred one summer’s 
evening. Before leaving at tea-time, Bridger had 
received at my father’s hands his week’s wages. 
A couple of hours later he was back again. He had 
lost all the money on the way home! The explana- 
tion was simple. He had a hole in his pocket! The 
loss was eventually made good; but not at the time. 
At the time he was simply advised as to the best 
steps to be taken with a view to the recovery of the 
lost money. He thanked my father, and started a 
second time for home. I followed him to the gate. 
In contrast with his usual behavior, he had no word 
for me. As he turned to shut the gate, I saw him 
wipe the tears from his face with his sleeve. Bridger 
was crying, and all through a hole in his pocket! 

I have often thought of it since. As the years 


30 The Crystal Pointers 


have come and gone they have taught me that 
Bridger is the type of us all. At least, he is the 
type of us all—with one exception. I understand 
that, over at the Other End of Nowhere, there is a 
jolly old soul who is moved, not to tears but to 
laughter, by the hole in his pocket. He is, I suppose, 
a child of Nature and takes after his mother, for 
one of our philosophers says of Nature herself that 
‘she always has her pockets full of seeds and has 
holes in all her pockets.’ If this old gentleman 
hears some spicy morsel of scandal, he makes a note 
of it, and slips the note in his pocket—the pocket 
with the hole in it! They say that he is very clever 
at pocketing insults and affronts: he pockets them, 
but they do not seem to add to his load. The 
secret is that he puts them all in the pocket that 
has the hole in it. The pleasant things go in 
the opposite pocket, and he examines it every morn- 
ing to make sure that there is no hole there. And 
every night, when he retires to rest, he empties 
the pocket that is so full and chuckles over all the 
treasure that he finds there; and he puts his hand 
into the pocket that has the hole in it and laughs 
at finding it always empty! Nobody seems to know 
which of his two wonderful pockets affords him 
the greater glee. 

Unhappily, however, this old gentleman must 
be regarded as an exception. Very few of us get as 
much fun as he does out of the holes in our pockets. 
Most of us are like Bridger. The hole provokes, 


Pockets 31 


not gladness, but grief. One of the old Hebrew 
prophets says as much. He laments that men should 
labor so hard and derive so little satisfaction from 
their toil. ‘He that earneth wages, he cries, ‘earneth 
wages to put tt into a pocket with holes? When 
Bridger reached home the second time, his wife 
set to work and mended the pocket. Bridger was 
very fortunate, and so was his wife. The hole of 
which the prophet is thinking is beyond the power 
of needle and thread. The hole in Bridger’s pocket 
partook of the nature of an accident: in many men 
it partakes of the nature of a disease. They earn 
wages and spend it in drink! They earn wages 
and lose it in gambling! They earn wages and 
squander it in extravagant tastes and inordinate 
pleasure! ‘He that earneth wages earneth wages to 
put it into a pocket with holes” Bridger’s perforated 
pocket moved him to tears and me to pity; but, 
looking back upon it, I feel like congratulating him. 
There are kindred disasters over which the angels 
weep. 

I have just been reading Dr. Alexander Whyte’s 
twentieth lecture on Thomas Shepard, the Founder 
of Harvard. The lecture is based on Shepard’s 
confession that ‘dis mind is a bucket without a 
bottom. As I read the lecture it occurred to me that 
a bucket without a bottom is the exact counterpart 
of a pocket like Bridger’s. Dr. Whyte says that 
Shepard’s bucket without a bottom reminds him 
of our Lord’s own hearers. “They came,’ he says, 


32 The Crystal Pointers 


‘and they sat till He was done with His sermon, 
and they came back again next Sabbath and sat 
till He was done, and then they rose up and went 
away as they came. Till at last, absolutely wearied 
and worn out with such hearers, He put them into 
those terrible parables that are preserved to us in 
the thirteenth of Matthew. In which parables He 
told them that, all the time He was preaching, He 
saw the wicked one stealing up to the seat where 
they were sitting and catching away the good seed 
as fast as He could sow it. As Thomas Shepard has 
it, the Devil himself came and knocked the bottom 
out of those hearers’ minds. And still, Sabbath 
after Sabbath, they brought their bottomless buckets 
to our Lord’s well, till the good angels wept over 
them, and till the angels of the Wicked One laughed 
at them, and the whole of the bottomless pit 
resounded with their laughter every Sabbath day, 
just as it resounds still.’ These are the people whose 
buckets had no bottoms! These are the people whose 
pockets were riddled with holes. They were ever 
learning, yet never coming to a knowledge of the 
truth. They were for ever receiving yet never pos- 
sessing. And, as we enter the presence of these 
unfortunates, it is time for us to give up searching 
our pockets and to begin searching our hearts. 


ee 


ee 
CRANKS 


It was most embarrassing! I hardly knew which 
way to look! They seemed to have completely 
forgotten that I was sitting there listening to every 
word! . 

John Broadbanks, Clive Hislop and I had driven 
over from Mosgiel immediately after breakfast 
for a day’s shooting at Peppertree Glen. In addition 
to his rifle, Hislop had brought his rod, and, soon 
after our arrival, moved off towards the creek. 
During the morning, John and I awoke all the 
echoes of that sylvan solitude by the constant roar 
and reverberation of our guns; and we hoped that 
Hislop was finding things no less lively among the 
trout. At noon we met by appointment in a grace- 
ful natural arbor, formed by the interlacing of the 
branches of a dozen trees. The heap of furry 
trophies, all limp, blood-stained and reproachful, 
lying in the shadow of the ti-tree, and the glitter 
of scales in Hislop’s basket, showed that our return 
to our respective manses would be without dis- 
comfiture. Perhaps it was the excitement of the 
morning’s sport that led to their singular forgetful- 
ness. 


33 


34 The Crystal Pointers 


‘I was talking to Harold Ashley yesterday,’ said 
John, as soon as our al-fresco banquet had become 
a thing of history, ‘and he was saying— 

“What on earth does it matter what he was say- 
ing?’ Hislop impatiently demanded. ‘Ashley is a 
crank; a notorious crank; as big a crank as you'll 
meet in a day’s march!’ 

And then, with a tactlessness that must seem 
incredible, they proceeded to talk about cranks! 
First the one and then the other, they rattled away 
till they were tired. Cranks old and cranks young; 
cranks rich and cranks poor; cranks scholarly and 
cranks illiterate; cranks religious and cranks secular; 
cranks male and cranks female: the theme seemed 
inexhaustible. Each of them appeared to have had 
a remarkably wide and versatile experience. And 
all the time, as I have said, they seemed to be bliss- 
fully oblivious of my presence. It was extremely 
awkward. 

The only practical thought suggested to my mind 
by this painful experience was that, since there are 
so many of us, it might be well to band ourselves 
together in some way for our mutual protection. 
I had thought of writing to the papers—after the 
approved fashion of cranks—suggesting the forma- 
tion of such a union or guild; and was only deterred 
by one paralyzing reflection. If my modest epistle 
led to the establishment of such an organization as 
I proposed, I could scarcely decline the presidency 
or secretaryship of the league that I had myself 


Cranks ae 


called into being; and I felt that there might be 
disadvantages in being generally and publicly recog- 
nized as the President of the Society of Cranks. 
I am not ashamed of being a crank, not at all; but 
there is no need to so emphasize that aspect of my 
composition as to make it appear that Iam a crank— 
and nothing else. It is not fair to say of any man 
that he is a certain something—and nothing else. 
The Prime Minister is the Prime Minister—and 
something else. The Archbishop of Canterbury is 
the Archbishop of Canterbury—and something else. 
The public hangman is the public hangman—and 
something else. The rag-and-bone man is the rag- 
and-bone man—and something else. There is always 
a something else. Indeed, the something else is 
infinitely bigger than the thing itself. The Premier- 
ship represents such an insignificant fraction of 
the total personality of the Prime Minister that, 
when he is golfing among the Surrey hills or romp- 
ing with his children at home, he entirely forgets 
that he happens to be the holder of that onerous and 
dignified office. When the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury is fishing in some woodland stream in 
Berkshire, he is completely lost to Lambeth Palace 
and all its ecclesiastical cares. If you saw the 
public hangman among his roses, you would never 
suspect that he had ever seen a gallows. And when 
the rag-and-bone man is at the top of his form, 
and is running up a much-needed century for the 
suburban cricket team, you would never connect 


36 The Crystal Pointers 


that dapper form in flannels with the malodorous 
store in which so much of his time is spent. So true 
is it that in each case there is a something else. 
And so there is in mine. I am a crank, of course; 
it would be both foolish and futile to deny it. 
But, like every other crank, I am a crank—and 
something else. If I write to the papers urging the 
immediate formation of a Society of Cranks, and, 
as a result, become president of the new society, 
I shall thrust one section of my personality into 
such disproportionate prominence that the part will 
inevitably be mistaken for the whole. When the 
Prime Minister is laying his policy before the 
country, he looks like a Prime Minister-and-nothing- 
else. When the Archbishop of Canterbury is address- 
ing his clergy, he looks like an Archbishop-and- 
nothing-else. When the public hangman is preparing 
to send a fellow mortal to his dreadful doom, he 
looks like a public-hangman-and-nothing-else. When 
the rag-and-bone man is busily sorting out his 
heaps of refuse, he looks like a rag-and-bone-man- 
and-nothing-else. It is all an optical illusion, as we 
have seen. It is part of life’s legerdemain! And in 
their cases, it does not matter much. But in my 
case it would matter a great deal. If I become 
President of the Society of Cranks, people will see 
me out of perspective. I shall look like a Crank- 
and-N othing-Else, whereas, as a matter of fact, I 
protest that I am a Crank-and-Something-Else; and 
between a Crank-and-Nothing-Else and a Crank- 


Cranks ar 


and-Something-Else there is all the difference in the 
world. Yes, all the difference in the world, and a 
great deal more! For I am convinced that, within 
the compass of the solar system, there is no such 
thing as a Crank-and-Nothing-Else. The creature 
is as imaginary, as fictitious, and as apocryphal as 
the bunyip, the phoenix, or the unicorn. ‘I don’t 
believe there’s no such a person as Mrs. Harris!’ 
exclaimed Betsy Prig on a certain memorable and 
historic occasion. And, modelling my scepticism on 
hers, I solemnly affirm, and with as good reason, that 
I don’t believe that there is such a thing as a crank 
who is all a crank; a crank who is a crank from 
the centre to the circumference; a crank who is a 
crank from the crown of his head to the sole of 
his foot; in a word, a crank who is a Crank-and- 
Nothing-Else. Why, then, should I, by some pre- 
cipitate action or hasty epistle of my own, lead my 
fellow-men to suppose that I, in my own proper 
person, represent that non-existent monstrosity ? 
On mature reflection, I can see that it would 
never do to form a Society of Cranks. It is too 
general; it would embrace too wide a constituency : 
you might as well form a Society of Men and be 
done with it. For we are all cranks. Each of us, 
that is to say, is a Crank-and-Something-Else. 
Some of us contrive to conceal our crankiness more 
skilfully than others; that is the only difference. 
And in some cases, we deserve no credit for that: 
the merit is not strictly our own. Wordsworth had 


38 The Crystal Pointers 


a way of talking loudly to himself as he walked 
along. In moments of passion he spoke loudly and 
employed lively and dramatic gestures. If you 
had surprised him in the midst of one of these 
noisy soliloquies, you would have recognized him 
at once as a crank. But then, you could not sur- 
prise him. Wordsworth’s little terrier saw to that. 
The dog was very jealous for his master’s repu- 
tation. As long as they had the road to themselves, 
the poet could raise his voice and wave his arms to 
his heart’s content. In those fine frenzies, he looked 
for all the world like a Crank-and-Nothing-Else. 
But no human eyes ever beheld that spectacle. For, 
the moment the dog heard footsteps down the lane or 
across the field, he stopped, faced his master, and 
saw to it that the poet was presentable. At the 
slightest sound, Wordsworth says, the terrier 
Would turn 

To give me timely notice, and straightway, 

Grateful for that admonishment, I hushed 

My voice, composed my gait, and, with the air 

And mien of one whose thoughts are free, advanced 

To give and take a greeting that might save 


My name from piteous rumors, such as wait 
On men suspected to be crazed in brain. 


How much we cranks all owe to those gentle mon- 
itors—sometimes canine, but more often feminine— 
who cunningly veil our oddities and make us appear 
to the world as though we are not cranks at all! 

When, in my easy-going way, I affirm that we are 
all cranks, I do not mean that we are all equally 


Cranks 39 


cranky. I suppose that I myself am an average 
crank: I flatter myself that I am no worse than 
that. In many of my fellows the crank element is 
less pronounced than it is in me: in many it 1s 
more. And it is because of my own sufferings at 
the hands of those who are more cranky than | 
am, that I am about to appeal for mercy to those 
who, in this respect, have the advantage of me. 
There are three kinds of cranks—cranks-positive, 
cranks-comparative and  cranks-superlative. A 
crank of any kind is very exasperating, especially 
to a crank. A crank who is cranky on the theory 
that the earth is flat is a desolation of abomination 
to the crank who is cranky on the theory that 
crocodile-oil is the only effective cure for muscular 
rheumatism. And vice versa. Neither will listen 
to the other for five consecutive minutes. But this 
intolerance will not do. I plead for pity. The 
cranks-positive must be very patient with the cranks- 
comparative, just as the cranks-comparative— 
among whom I count myself—must show infinite 
courtesy and consideration towards the cranks- 
superlative. All through my life I have been pam- 
pered and petted. I have, therefore, no reason to 
complain. The world has been to my virtues very 
kind and to my vices very blind. When the crank- 
element in me has become conspicuous, my friends 
have been wonderfully forbearing. But, if trouble 
should arise, I am ready for it. If, one of these 
days, my crankiness should prove too much for the 


40 The Crystal Pointers 


patience of one of my companions, and he should 
turn upon me, I have resolved upon my method of 
defence. He will next morning receive a parcel 
at the hands of the postman. It will contain a 
book. It will not be a Bible, but a dictionary, and 
a Saxon dictionary-at that. An old Quaker gentle- 
man at Hobart, when he was dying, placed a Saxon 
dictionary in my hands and begged me to accept it as 
a memento of my visits to him. I bore it home 
wondering to what use I could possibly put it. But 
I am ashamed of myself for having harbored such 
a thought. Only this morning I looked up the word 
‘cranc’—the Saxon word that has led to the coin- 
age of our own. And I find that it means ‘weak, 
near to death.’ We do not treat with anger those 
who are weak or near to death. If I post my 
dictionary to the man who treats my foibles with 
asperity, it will surely lead him to repentance! 
‘Near to death! I did not expect the dictionary 
to give the matter a tragic turn. And yet the tragic 
turn is a true turn. I remember, many years ago, 
being maddened by the vexatious behavior of a 
crank-superlative. The things he said of me, and 
the letters he wrote to me, were more than ia 
crank-comparative, could bear. At length he broke 
all bounds and angered me beyond endurance. I 
wrote a letter that, I thought, would bring him to 
his senses. It was a stinging letter; it was meant 
to hurt. I put on my hat and went out to post it. 
Somehow, the stillness of that starry night, satu- 


— 


Cranks AI 


rating my spirit, softened me, and the letter felt hot 
in my hands. I reached the pillar-box; but I did 
not commit the fiery letter to its care. It was a lovely 
night; I was enjoying the walk; I strolled straight 
on. I could easily post the letter, if I so desired, 
on my way back. A quarter of a mile further on, 
I met a friend. He had been back at his shop, 
stocktaking, and was returning home, tired. I turned 
to walk with him. Half-way back to the pillar- 
box he startled me. 

‘So poor old Crittingden is dead! he observed. 
Crittingden was the name on the envelope in my 
hand! 

‘Is he, indeed? I exclaimed in astonishment, 
‘when did this happen?’ 

‘Oh, he died suddenly early this afternoon. It’s 
a happy release, you know; he’s had a bad time. 
You know his secret, I suppose?’ I confessed my 
ignorance. 

‘Oh, I thought everybody knew,’ my companion 
went on. ‘Crittingden only had two children, a son 
and a daughter. The son was killed soon after his 
wife died, and the daughter, poor girl, lost her 
reason, and is in the Cranbrook Asylum. Poor old 
Crittingden never got over it It soured him, and 
he’s better away!’ 

‘Weak,’ says the dictionary, ‘and near to death’! 
I returned to my fireside that night, humbled and 
ashamed. I tore the letter into small. fragments 
and burned them one by one. And, as I kneeled ' 


42 The Crystal Pointers 


before the blaze, I prayed that I, a crank-com- 
parative, might, in the days to come, find grace to 
treat the cranks-superlative as I should wish the 
cranks-positive to treat poor me. 


IV 
CRUSTY 


I 


Wuen I saw Crusty for the first time, I thought 
him the most picturesque figure it had ever been 
my lot to meet. It was a delightful afternoon 
in early summer. The mistress of the manse and 
I had been driving for nearly an hour along a 
road that differed in no essential respect from the 
paddocks on either side of it. The grass over which 
we were driving was just as green, and the tussocks 
as numerous, as on the other side of the barbed- 
wire fences. We had to crawl along at a snail’s 
pace in order to give Jeanie a chance of keeping 
her feet out of the rabbits’ holes. Faint wheel- 
marks on the grass were the only indication that 
others, similarly situated, had passed this way before 
us. Travelling under such conditions, every fur- 
long seeming a mile, we felt that we were going 
a long way without getting anywhere. The country 
ahead of us appeared one vast solitude. 

‘Are you sure that we are on the right road?’ my 
companion enquired. 

As a matter of fact I enjoyed no such confidence. 
On the day of their wedding Ned and Maggie 


43 


4A The Crystal Pointers 


Sutherland, in begging us to visit them, had care- 
fully described to me the exact spot in which their 
new nest had been built. I conceived but a hazy 
idea as to its whereabouts. As soon as we lost sight 
of Mosgiel, crossed the ridge, left the main road, 
and plunged into the unmade track that winds among 
the foothills at the back of Saddle Hill, I became 
painfully uncertain. Presently, however, we came 
upon a belt of bush, and heard, to our infinite relief, 
the thwack, thwack, thwack of an axe. 

Five minutes later, an extraordinary apparition 
confronted us. A gigantic figure, at least six feet 
six in height and broad in proportion, stood facing 
us in the centre of the track. His face was bronzed; 
he wore a long, black beard; his immense and well- 
formed limbs gave an irresistible impression of 
titanic strength. His head was bare; his blue 
jumper, thrown open, exposed his massive and 
sinewy chest; his hammer, knives, and foot-rule 
were stuck into his belt. The moment he caught 
sight of us he turned quickly to his work. As we 
drove up, he was placing an iron jack under a log 
that was as thick as he was tall. It seemed in- 
credible that one man should be able to handle, lift, 
and split such monstrous masses of timber. In the 
years that followed I often stood and watched him: 
he seemed to handle the biggest trees in the bush 
as easily as an ordinary man handles small logs in 
a wood-shed. 

“Excuse me,’ I called, ‘but could you tell me the 


Crusty 45 


way to Ned Sutherland’s place?’ The air was per- 
fumed with the odor of the newly cut wood: the 
track on which we had reined up was carpeted 
with bark and chips: Crusty proceeded to adjust 
his jack as composedly as if there were nobody 
within miles of him. I waited until, the instrument 
being in position, he rose: I then repeated my 
question. | 

‘We are looking,’ I explained, in a slightly louder 
voice, ‘for Ned Sutherland’s place. Do you happen 
to know if we are on the right road?’ Still no 
answer: Crusty went on with his work without even 
deigning to glance at us. My companion hazarded 
the conjecture that he might be deaf. But a deaf 
man is quick to see things. A deaf man would 
have stepped forward as soon as we drew rein; and, 
seeing my lips move, would have told us of his 
infirmity, putting his hand to his ear the while. 
Moreover, since the safety of an axeman’s life and 
limbs must often depend on his hearing every creak 
and groan that the timber gives, it was difficult to 
imagine that a deaf man would expose himself to 
such risks. I repeated my question a third time, 
with no better result: Crusty never even lifted his 
eyes from his work. I therefore flicked the reins 
on Jeanie’s back and we proceeded. 

Half an hour later we were enjoying afternoon 
tea with Maggie and Ned. To our surprise we 
found that they were expecting us. 

‘Through the trees,’ Maggie explained, ‘we can 


46 The Crystal Pointers 


just see the crest of the hill, and we happened to 
catch sight of the buggy before you went into the 
hollow. We said you'd be here in an hour or so.’ 

We told them of our adventure in the bush and 
of the fruitlessness of our enquiries. 

‘Oh, that was old Crusty,’ cried Ned, laughing 
boisterously. ‘We had lots of fun with him until 
we got to understand. The trouble was,’ he added, 
turning directly to me, ‘that you were not alone. 
The first time I met him was when I was building 
the shanty here. He looked proudly round his 
trim little home as he said it. ‘I was coming 
whistling along the track one day, when, all of a 
sudden, I met Crusty. He was pushing a wheel- 
barrow containing his tools and paraphernalia. I 
spoke to him and he stopped. We had quite a 
long chat. He told me of the contract he had 
accepted for splitting so many tons of posts and 
rails; and he pointed out to me the trees from which 
he intended to get them. I remember how babyish 
I felt as I looked up to him, whilst he talked down 
to me. What a tremendous fellow he is!’ 

Maggie handed her husband a second cup of 
tea, as an encouragement to him to go on with 
his story. He did. 

‘The second time I came upon him,’ he said, 
‘was about a month after the wedding, and Maggie 
was with me. He was sawing away at a huge log, 
and I took Maggie across to him. I thought that 
she would be interested and that he might like to 


Crusty 44 


explain everything to her. But, my word, we got 
a cold reception! He never even looked at us. 
I spoke, but I might as well have addressed the log 
he was sawing. We came away in disgust. Crusty 
won’t speak to a woman, nor to a man if he has a 
woman with him. Maggie’s little niece was here 
the other week, spending a day or two with us. 
She had a camera with her, and took it into her 
head that she would like to take Crusty’s photo- 
graph. He ignored her as she approached, and 
then, perceiving her intention, he tramped off into 
the bush and concealed himself until she was gone. 
He'll have nothing to do with girls or women at 
any price: he evidently thinks they’re a bad lot. 
Perhaps,’ he added, with a mischievous glance at 
Maggie, ‘perhaps he knows them better than we do.’ 
Maggie boxed his ears and passed him the cake. 

‘Where does he live?’ I enquired. 

‘Oh, he lives—if you can call it living—in a little 
humpy away down the gully, replied Ned. ‘It's 
a tumble-down old place—a single room without 
even a window: I suppose he gets as much light 
as he wants through the cracks and the open door. 
He goes up to Rowan’s store at Saddle Hill once 
a week for candles, tinned meats, and general sup- 
plies. As soon as they see him coming they have 
to scurry Mrs. Rowan and the girls out of the way 
double-quick. If he catches sight of any of the 
women-folk behind the counter, or if there are 
women in the shop, he strides out on the instant 


48 The Crystal Pointers 


and marches on to Sandy Laughlin’s store at Mos- 
giel. Sandy is a bachelor, and Crusty knows that 
he will have no trouble there.’ 

As the clock struck five, Ned and I strolled off 
to get the buggy ready for the return journey, and 
we were soon on the crest of the hill looking down 
upon Mosgiel. In the years that followed I had 
many long talks with Crusty. Everything that I 
wanted to know about woodcraft and bushmanship 
he willingly told me; but as soon as I got to closer 
grips, probed beneath the surface of things, and 
touched the secret springs of his own life, he shut 
up like an oyster and was as silent as the sphinx. 


II 


Two things precipitated the change that overtook 
Crusty. The first was an arrival: the second was 
an accident. When the New Zealand Government 
undertook the formidable task of constructing a 
railway line through the rugged and mountainous 
region known as the Otago Central, Mosgiel became 
for a time the headquarters of the gangs of men 
engaged upon the work. Scores of new faces were 
seen about the township. Among these was a man 
named Dick Fleming, a wild, reckless fellow, who 
drank much and talked more. He was compara- 
tively new to the country, having come from the 
exhausted diggings of New South Wales. He was 
never tired of telling more or less authentic stories 
of his adventurous career on the goldfields. One 


Crusty 49 


summer evening he was standing with a group of 
kindred spirits, just outside the door of O’Kane’s 
Hotel, when he suddenly caught sight of Crusty’s 
immense form passing John Havelock’s store im- 
mediately opposite. On seeing him, Dick became 
immoderately excited. 

‘Hey, Andy!’ he yelled, at the top of his voice. 

Crusty paused involuntarily, looked across, glow- 
ered fiercely at Dick, and then strode on. | 

‘Why, that’s old Andy Donovan! Dick went 
on, addressing his boon companions. “Nobody 
could mistake him: he was the biggest chap on 
the diggings, and the best. When the gold petered 
out, he went down Madderfield way and took up 
with the prettiest girl in the district. To hear him 
talk of her you’d have thought that the sun rose 
when Mary opened her eyes in the morning, and set 
when she closed them at night. But she jilted him: 
vanished the night before the wedding: and about a 
month afterwards he saw, in the Sydney Morning 
Herald, the account of her wedding to a young 
farmer at Myrtle Vale. My word, didn’t Andy 
cut up rough? He swore he’d never speak to a 
woman as long as he lived, and, up to the time 
I saw him last, he never did.’ 

This street-corner revelation soon became public 
property. Mosgiel had always been curious about 
the taciturn giant up in the woods. The new 
development reached my ears through our butcher- 
boy, who knew my interest in Crusty. I sought 


50 The Crystal Pointers 


an early interview with Dick Fleming, and extracted 
from him the fullest particulars that he was able 
to impart. On many points he was a trifle hazy, 
but, fortunately for my purpose, he was sure of 
Mary’s name, and could recall within a month or 
so the date of the wedding that never took place. 

Armed with this information, I sent a note to 
Ned, asking him to call at the manse when next 
he visited the township. On Friday morning I 
heard his ‘coo-ee’ at the gate. He couldn't leave 
the cart, he said, because he had the two youngsters 
with him: he was to pick up Maggie at the station. 

‘By scissors, he exclaimed, as soon as I gave 
him the news, ‘we'll get to the bottom of this! 
There’s an explanation somewhere: a woman like 
that wouldn’t leave old Crusty in the lurch and 
marry another fellow just for fun. Either she 
wasn’t the woman he took her to be, or there’s a 
mistake somewhere. We'll find out. Maggie has 
a brother in a bank in Sydney: we'll ask him to do 
a little ferreting; it ought not to be very hard 
work,’ 

Maggie agreed, and the letter was written that 
very night. Then the unexpected happened. 


Til 


Ten days later Ned was again at the manse. 

“You'll never guess what’s happened,’ he said. 
‘Poor old Crusty broke his leg up in the bush! 
In getting out of the way of a falling tree, he 


Crusty 51 


stumbled over a stone and a thick branch struck 
him. There was nowhere else to take him, so they 
brought him to our place. It’s mighty awkward, 
for he won’t let Maggie go near him. He’d tear 
off the splints if he knew that, whilst he was lying 
unconscious, Maggie practised first-aid on him. 
The doctor has been twice since; but I have to 
take him his meals and do everything for him. It’sa 
terrible tie.’ 

I promised to visit the invalid, and, two days 
later, did so. I tried hard to get him to talk about 
New South Wales, but with small success. He 
merely admitted having lived there. 

‘Ah, well,’ I said, in taking leave of him, ‘Pll 
come again in a week or two; and, if I can pick up 
a few Sydney papers, I'll bring them: they’ll remind 
you of old times.’ 

By the time that I paid that next visit, Crusty 
was able to hobble about on an enormous pair of 
crutches. By that time, too, a letter and a bundle 
of newspapers had arrived from Sydney. Ned 
brought these down to the manse almost as soon 
as he had read them. He was very excited about 
it. We talked the matter over and it was agreed 
that I should take them up to Crusty next day. 

We were sitting in the sun, just outside the door 
of Ned’s cottage. Crusty’s broken leg reposed upon 
a chair placed in front of him, and his crutches lay 
on the ground near by. 

‘Well, Crusty,’ I said, ‘I promised to bring you 


52 The Crystal Pointers 


some New South Wales papers, and here they are! 
You'll find all sorts of things in them. I was read- 
ing last night in this one—the Western Advertiser— 
of the discovery, in an old quarry at Madderfield, 
of the remains of a girl who had been missing for 
years. It seems that she disappeared mysteriously 
on the night before her wedding-day. It’s supposed 
that she went out late that night to post a letter, 
took a short cut back past the top of the quarry, 
missed her footing, and fell in.’ 

Crusty was trembling in every nerve. He leaned 
forward eagerly and asked the girl’s name. 

‘Her name,’ I replied, ‘was Mary Chambers.’ 

Crusty moaned: ‘No,’ he said at length, ‘it 
can’t be! Mary Chambers was married at Myrtle 
Vale a month afterwards.’ 

‘I think not, Crusty,’ I replied. ‘There’s a bit 
about that further down.’ I turned the paper and 
read itto him. ‘Several of the residents at Madder- 
field, it says, were under the impression that Mary 
Chambers went to Myrtle Vale and was married in 
that district some weeks afterwards. We learn on 
enquiry, however, that the Mary Chambers who 
was married at Myrtle Vale was in no way con- 
nected with the Mary Chambers whose tragic death 
it is to-day our painful duty to record.’ I rose, 
laid the paper on my chair, and quietly left him. 
It was no time for talk. 

A few days later, Maggie took him his afternoon 
tea, and he raised no protest. His terrible reserve 


Crusty 53 


slowly melted. Within a few months he was at the 
manse, and once or twice, on special occasions, he 
even dropped into a back seat at the church. 

‘It’s a sore, sore thing,’ he said to me one day; 
‘it’s a sore, sore thing to misunderstand and mis- 
judge. It isn’t the one that’s misjudged that suffers, 
it’s the one that holds in his heart a hard and bitter 
thought. It makes him hard and bitter. You all 
call me Crusty, and I richly deserve it. I shall 
always be Crusty here, but, please God, I won't be 
Crusty for ever and ever.’ 

And, as we watched him soften and sweeten with 
the passing of years, we could quite easily believe it. 


Vv 
A BASKET OF BOMBSHELLS 


I 


A wInpow, a basket, and a rope! But for that 
window and that basket and that rope we should 
never have heard of Paul, and the whole course of 
world-history would have been incalculably poorer. 
The tremendous record of continental conquest 
unfolded in the Acts of the Apostles would never 
have been written. The basket that contained that 
young convert—his great life yet wnlived, his 
historic proclamations unuttered, his epistles un- 
written, his triumphs unachieved—was a basket of 
bombshells. The chapter that records Paul’s con- 
version records also the hairbreadth escape that 
immediately followed. On the road to Damascus 
there fell upon him the light that never was on sea 
or shore: in the city of Damascus he was threatened 
with a violent death. ‘The Jews took counsel to 
kill him, and watched the gates night and day.’ 
And he himself tells us that the Governor and offi- 
cials were parties to the murderous project; but, 
he says, ‘through a window m «@ basket was I let 
down by the wall and escaped their hands’ A 
window, a basket, and a rope; those three things 


54 


A Basket of Bombshells 55 


are the symbols of life’s most striking and most 
metnorable deliverances. | 

Life tends to contract. Before we realize that 
we are prisoners, we find ourselves confined to a 
single room. A man goes into business: it quickly 
absorbs all his energies: it shuts him in, incarcerates 
and immures him: he has no thought for anything 
beyond it. An engrossing pastime or a fascinating 
sport may do the same thing. Every chamber has 
six sides. The ceiling shuts out the heavens; the 
foor shuts out the earth; the walls shut out the four 
points of the compass. The stars that shine in 
God’s great sky: the flowers that bloom on His 
fair earth: the beauty spread about us on every 
hand: all these are easily excluded. We are like 
silkworms: we have a way of imprisoning ourselves 
in Our Own cocoons. 

The man in the street imagines that religion is 
a contrivance for narrowing life. He is wrong. 
Religion is a contrivance for broadening life. It 
enables a man to burst the links of habit, to break 
from straitened ways, to walk with buoyant stride 
a wider world. It provides him with a window, 
a basket, and a rope. And, by means of these, he 
escapes. 


II 


The window is well worth looking at. There is 
always a window. However cribbed and cramped 
life may have become, there is somewhere a lattice 


56 The Crystal Pointers 


or a casement or a grating from which an ampler 
landscape may be seen. The prisoner of Chillon, 
shut up in his wretched cell, found a means of relief 
in varying the directions in which, like a caged 
tiger, he paced it. 

And it was liberty to stride 

Along my cell from side to side, 

And up and down, and then athwart, 

And tread it over every part; 


And around the pillars one by one, 
Returning where my walk begun. 


But the thrilling sensation of his imprisonment 
came when, making footholes in the wall, he clam- 
bered up to the barred grating, and, peeping 
through, caught a glimpse of the mountains. 

I saw them—and they were the same, 

They were not changed like me in frame; 

I saw their thousand years of snow 

On high—their wide long lake below, 

And the blue Rhone in fullest flow; 


T heard the torrents leap and gush 
O’er channell’d rock and broken bush. 


The window made all the difference. And the 
beauty of it is that there is always a window some- 
where. 

Sometimes it takes the form of a book. What 
a day that was on which George Borrow opened the 
famous packet that contained a copy of Robinson 
Crusoe! He devotes a whole page of Lavengro to 
the story of his excitement: ‘The ice which had 
hitherto bound the mind of the child with its benumb- 


A Basket of Bombshells 57 


ing power was thawed, and a world of sensations 
and ideas awakened to which it had hitherto been an 
entire stranger. To the end of his days Borrow 
could never think of that moment without a delicious 
thrill. Life was never the same again. It changed 
everything, and, but for it, his own works could 
never have been written. What a night that was 
on which a small boy named Walter Scott found, 
among the ‘unalluring professional tomes in his 
father’s library, a copy of Shakespeare! He has 
told us how, night after night, he crept out of bed, 
bore the volume in feverish excitement to the 
flickering firelight, and, as long as he could persuade 
a single spark to illumine the entrancing pages, read 
on and on and on. It was through that window 
that Sir Walter Scott caught the vision that led 
to the creation of all the droll and lovable and roman- 
tic characters that figure in the Waverley Novels. 
And what a day that was on which a boy named 
Charles Dickens, at the dullest, drabbest, dreariest 
period of his youthful career, found a row of old 
novels on a high and dusty shelf! Forster has told 
the story in his Life of Dickens, and Dickens him- 
self has told it in David Copperfield. Those twelve 
old books, Forster says, furnished the boy with a 
host of friends when he had no single friend; and 
when he was compelled to leave them, he felt that he 
was leaving everything that had given his ailing little 
life its picturesqueness and sunshine. ‘It was,’ his 
biographer adds, ‘the birth of his fancy.’ “Those 


58 The Crystal Pointers 


books,’ says Dickens, in David Copperfield, “those 
books were my only and my constant comfort. They 
were glorious companions; they kept alive my fancy; 
they gave me hope of something beyond that place 
any time.’ In each case, it will be observed, the 
books served as windows. A very small window 
may open upon a very extensive landscape. By 
means of those windows, the imprisoned minds of 
Borrow, Scott, and Dickens contrived a dramatic 
and eventful escape. They became citizens of infin- 
ity. 

Sometimes it takes the form of a hobby or a holi- 
day. Mark Rutherford found that a vision of the 
sea or the stars turned his thoughts towards immen- 
sity, and gave him deliverance from the pettiness 
about him. 

The window, as every architect knows, takes many 
forms; but the point is that it is always there. 
Paul himself says so. Having passed through his 
thrilling and adventurous experience at Damascus, 
he unhesitatingly assures all imprisoned spirits that, 
if they look about them, they will certainly find 
a window somewhere. ‘God is faithful, he says; 
‘He will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye 
are able, but will, with the temptation, provide a 
way of escape’ 

A way of escape! Temptation, however strong, 
never amounts to compulsion. A man is never shut 
up to an evil course. There is always an alterna- 
tive. There is invariably a way out. It is not 


A Basket of Bombshells 59 


always easy, especially if the night is dark, to find 
the window. But, beyond the shadow of a doubt, 
it is there. ‘Through a window, Paul says, ‘I 
escaped.’ It is the general experience. The line of 
vision is the line of liberty. The window represents 
the avenue of escape. 


Ill 


The basket is well worth looking at. And, for the 
man who has set his heart upon being at liberty, 
there is always a basket. The basket represents 
those things that, falling short of the ideal, may 
nevertheless serve a most useful purpose. The 
basket was not made to carry a man; it was made 
foramantocarry. But the man whose life depends 
upon his finding some vehicle to which he can com- 
mit himself, will not quarrel with the basket on 
that account. 

Appetite is the best sauce. A hungry man will 
not criticize his food. A drowning man will clutch 
at a straw. The man who recognizes the extremity 
of his peril will not be fastidious about the basket. 
The Church is a means of grace just as the basket 
is a means of escape. The ideal Church has never 
yet been discovered. It is the easiest thing in the 
world to find fault with the Churches. This one 
is too high and that one too low. The music of 
this one is too jaunty and the music of that one too 
elaborate. These services are too ornate and those 
are too severely plain. This preaching is too 


60 The Crystal Pointers 


academic and that is too illiterate. It is all true— 
perfectly true. The Church has no right to resent 
faithful and honest criticism. She must ceaselessly 
struggle towards the ideal. But it is also true 
that the man whose very life depends upon instant 
action will not stickle for perfection or stipulate 
for the ideal. No man would travel in a basket 
for preference. It is neither comfortable nor dig- 
nified. Yet circumstances alter cases. When a 
man has to escape for his life by a window, he will 
not cavil at the basket. The soul that is in deadly 
earnest to flee from the wrath to come will find in 
any Church or in any ministry some word of hope 
to which it can desperately cling. 

There is always a basket: that is the point. And 
the presence of the basket is intensely significant. 
I was talking last night to Harry Peel. Harry has 
long been on the verge of Christian discipleship. 
But he can never persuade himself that his faith 
is of the right kind; what assurance has he of 
his acceptance with God? Note the assumption. 
He assumes that God sits critically, judicially 
examining and testing the faith of every penitent. 
If it comes up to the requisite standard, the appli- 
cant is accepted: if not, he is summarily rejected. 
Harry forgets about the story of the Prodigal Son. 
The father did not wait to watch the manner of 
his boy’s approach: he ran to meet him. ‘That is 
the significance of the basket. The basket proves 
conclusively that He who provides the means of 


A Basket of Bombshells 61 


escape is anxious that the escape should be made. 
Why is the cup placed at the spring unless he who 
places it there is eager that every thirsty traveller 
should drink? Why should the whole world be 
dotted with churches—each church a “means of 
grace’—unless the great Lord of all the Churches is 
eager that, of His grace, all men should taste? 

In the early chapters of the Bible there is a 
charming and suggestive incident. When Joseph’s 
brethren returned from Egypt, and told Jacob that 
Joseph was yet alive, and that he was ruler over 
all the land of Egypt, the old man could not give 
credence to the amazingly improbable story. He 
shook his head sadly, and refused to believe it. ‘But 
when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to 
carry him, his spirit revived, and he said, Joseph ts 
indeed alive: I will go and see him before I die.’ 

When he saw the wagons! 

When he saw the basket! 

When he saw the churches! 

It is very difficult to explain the means of escape 
except on the hypothesis that ‘God desireth not the 
death of a sinner but rather that he may turn from 
his wickedness and live’ The basket, like the win- 
dow, is well worth looking at. And so is the coil of 
rope. 


IV 


The rope is well worth looking at. A rope has 
two ends. Paul, in the basket, hangs at one end: 


62 The Crystal Pointers 


who is at the other? I see the basket, with its 
priceless load, being lowered from the window. It 
is not being lowered by machinery. Back there, out 
of sight, there are human hands upon that rope! 
I wonder whose hands they are! 

At the back of every great and noble deed there 
are invisible hands; the hands that hold the rope; 
the hands without which the splendid action could 
never have been performed. We are too fond of 
crying, proudly, ‘Alone I did it? It is always 
untrue. Robinson Crusoe seems to be alone on his 
island; but what of the men who made his tools, 
the men who invented them, and the people who 
taught him how to use them? The explorer seems 
to be alone as he tramps across the continent. But 
what of the man who made his gun, the thinker who 
invented his instruments, and a score of others with- 
out whose aid his heroic achievement would have 
been impossible? 

I have often stood beside that plain brown slab 
in Westminster Abbey—the stone that marks the 
resting-place of David Livingstone. The opening 
words of the inscription always impressed me as 
being very beautiful: ‘Brought by faithful hands 
over land and sea... . Faithful hands! 

The faithful but unseen hands upon the rope! 
If a man escapes, he escapes because of the fidelity 
and affection of a loyal band of rope-holders! A 
mother, a father, a teacher, a writer, a minister: 
there are quite a number of them. One pair of 


A Basket of Bombshells 63 


hands is never strong enough to lower the basket 
from the window. At the back of every conversion 
there is a sacred conspiracy, a holy alliance, an 
inspired league. Every man who reviews the story 
of his own escape will sing a doxology for the 
window; he will sing a doxology for the basket; 
and he will sing a fervent doxology for the hands 
upon the rope. 


V 


For every man there is a window: for every man 
there is a basket: for every man there is a rope— 
and ‘faithful hands’ to hold it. A man should have 
a good look at that window, that basket, that coil 
of rope, and those faithful hands. And, having 
had a good look at them, he should ask himself 
one of the most pertinent questions that the New 
Testament propounds to him: ‘How shall I escape?’ 
Let him say to himself, ‘How shall I escape tf I neg- 
lect so great salvation?’ And if he finds that ques- 
tion as unanswerable as everybody else has found it, 
let him make the unanswerable question answerable 
by lopping off its first word. And the terrible answer 
that will then leap out at him will hurry him to 
the Cross. 


VI 
A MORNING MIND 


MAN isa mighty maker. Morning, noon and night, 
he is always at it. Just think of the things he 
makes! Sometimes he makes haste; sometimes he 
makes love; sometimes he makes mistakes; some- 
times he makes decisions; but, whatever he makes, he 
is always making something. Just now I am thinking 
about the decisions. Their manufacture represents 
the most delicate of all his tasks. Upon his clever- 
ness or clumsiness in this department, the success 
or failure of his whole career must ultimately 
depend. The making of a decision needs a cool 
head, a steady nerve, and a firm hand. A good deal 
depends upon the moment at which he makes it. 
There are times when a man should make up his 
mind to make up his mind; and there are times 
when a man should make up his mind to do nothing 
of the sort. The making of a decision is like the 
taking of a photograph; it needs a good light—a 
light that is neither too fierce nor too feeble. The 
man who understands precisely when to take a pho- 
tograph is the man who understands precisely how 
to take a photograph. And, in the same way, the man 
who understands precisely when to make up his mind 
64 


A Morning Mind 65 


is the man who understands precisely how to make 
up his mind. With all the conditions favorable, 
and the camera most skilfully manipulated, the 
photograph may be ruined through the exposure 
having been made when the light was either too daz- 
zling or too dim. The picturesque background 
may have been most tastefully chosen and most 
artistically prepared, the sitters may have been 
most excellently and symmetrically grouped; the 
postures may be perfect, the dresses a dream, 
and the smiles all that the most fastidious opera- 
tor could desire. The plate may have been most 
wisely chosen; the lenses most scientifically adjusted ; 
and, at the critical juncture, there may not have 
been the trembling of a leaf, the flutter of a 
a veil or the flicker of an eyelid anywhere. And 
yet, if the exposure was made at a moment when 
the light was too glaring or too glum, the picture will 
prove a general disappointment. I have known a 
man to blur the whole landscape of his life in the 
same way. Circumstances arose which demanded a 
decision. All the facts were before him and his 
task appeared by no means difficult. But, like the 
photographer who removes the shutter when the 
light is unfavorable, he faced the crisis at the wrong 
moment and everything was blurred in consequence. 

The best decisions are made, as the best photo- 
graphs are taken, by daylight. A flashlight photo- 
graph is all very well in its way; but its way 1s 
not the best way. Flashlight decisions belong to 


66 The Crystal Pointers 


pretty much the same order of things. It some- 
times happens that a matter has to be decided in 
the evening, just as it sometimes happens that a 
photograph has to be taken after sunset. In each 
case the operator will do the best that is possible 
to him in the circumstances; but he will do it 
regretiully. He will sigh for the beauty of the 
morning; and will wish that the photograph could 
have been taken, or the decision made, in the fresh- 
ness of the sunlight. I shall be told, I daresay, 
that some of the most momentous decisions ever 
reached were made after nightfall. I can only 
reply that such an objection, if raised, will prove 
my critic to be a very superficial observer. For 
see! 

We all get more or less drunk after dark. I do 
not mean that we indulge to excess in spirituous 
liquors; that, after all, is merely one species of in- 
toxication. One of these days a temperance orator, 
eager for fresh ammunition, will see the force of 
this new argument and will use it with deadly effect. 
Why go to the public-houses, he will ask, and spend 
your hard-earned money in intoxicating liquors, 
when everybody else contrives to get intoxicated for 
nothing? It will be a bold statement, but it will be 
a true one. What happens is this: A man con- 
sists of two distinct, and often conflicting, sets of 
qualities—his, judgment and his emotions. We 
commonly classify them, in our free and easy way, 
as his head and his heart. If, in some moment of 


A Morning Mind 67 


psychological inebriety, a man stultifies his judgment 
at the dictates of his emotions, we say that his heart 
ran away with his head. Shakespeare defines a 
drunkard as a man who puts an enemy into his 
mouth to steal away his brains. The analogy is 
arresting. In the one form of intoxication the heart 
runs off with the head; in the other, the thief goes 
off with the brains: it comes to much the same thing. 

Now the trouble is that, from daylight till dark, 
we work our heads to death and keep our hearts 
locked up. We overwork our judgments and rigidly 
suppress our emotions. We rush through life with 
a serious face, and, if some softer sentiment appeals 
to us, we wave it aside with the reminder that busi- 
ness is business. But all things come to an end, 
and the daylight dies at last. We put up the shutters 
and go home. Then comes the changing of the 
guard. We hand ourselves over from the domina- 
tion of one set of faculties to the command of 
another set. The head has had its innings; it 1s the 
heart’s turn now! The judgment, worn out, sinks 
quietly to rest; the emotions wake up! They are 
fresh and keen and vigorous, like a dog unchained 
at last. Under their guidance, anything may happen. 
The man is intoxicated. He is not himself. Or, 
if he is himself, then he was not himself during the 
daytime. For this man is not that man. Robert 
Louis Stevenson has told the amazing story of Dr. 
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; and the story, incredible as 
it seems, is reflected in the experience of each of 


68 The Crystal Pointers 


us every day. We pass from Philip drunk to Philip 
sober every morning; and from Philip sober to Philip 
drunk again every night. It often happens that 
Philip drunk is a much more amiable person than 
Philip sober. Therein lies half the tragedy. And 
it is that half of the tragedy that has misled the critic 
who taunts me with the fact that some very admi- 
rable and very notable decisions have been reached 
after dark. 

A drunken man may, of course, reach a very wise 
decision. Indeed, only the other night 1 heard a 
poor fellow go reeling past the house proclaiming 
at the top of his voice that he would never get drunk 
any more. It was a most excellent resolve. But 
who, noticing that a drunken man occasionally 
reaches a wise decision, would argue that, on that 
account, any man faced by a critical issue should, 
in order discreetly to resolve the matter, go and get 
drunk? A drunken man sometimes resolves, under 
the influence ‘of his stimulants, that he will never 
get drunk any more; but, much more frequently, 
he resolves to go home and beat his wife or smash 
the furniture. Therein lies the other half of the 
tragedy, and this half my critic forgets. For if 
it be true, on the one hand, that some of the best 
decisions are registered after dark, it is no less true, 
on the other hand, that the worst ones invariably 
are. . 

In one of his essays, Charles Wagner points out 
that the ancient Scythians had a singular way of 


A Morning Mind 69 


making important decisions. They discussed the 
matter twice. They first considered it when under 
the influence of wine, which stirs generous senti- 
ments, loosens the tongue, and gives courage to the 
fearful. But the decisions then reached, impreg- 
nated, as they were, with the fancies of drunkenness, 
were not regarded as final. They were reviewed after 
a prolonged fast, and no resolution was carried into 
effect until it had survived the ordeal of this double 
test. I repeat, then, that we all get more or less 
drunk after dark. Our nocturnal intoxication may 
arise from spirituous liquors or it may arise from 
the wild surge of our released emotions after the 
severe repression of the day. We may be swept off 
our feet by an exciting book, by the convivial glow 
generated in agreeable society, by a picture, by a 
song, by a quarrel. Any one of a score of passions, 
finding the judgment asleep, may get to itself the 
upper hand. Under its domination we become some- 
thing other than ourselves; and the great issues of 
life ought not to be decided under such conditions. 
Resolves then made should, if possible, be rigorously 
reviewed. 

In his Born in Exile, George Gissing keeps the 
reader on tenter-hooks, through more than five 
hundred pages, waiting for the momentous decision 
which his heroine, Sidwell Warricombe, makes on 
almost the last page of the book. But Godwin Peak 
writes at last making the proposal for which we have 
waited so long. Next morning Sidwell takes her 


70 The Crystal Pointers 


friend Sylvia Moorhouse to a retreat at the top of 
the house. Here the two girls sit in the light and 
warmth, a glass door wide open to the west, the rays 
of a brilliant sun softened by curtains which flutter 
lightly in the breeze from the sea. Sidwell tells 
Sylvia of Godwin’s letter. 

‘In the night,’ she says, “I wrote to father, but 
I shall not give him the letter. Before it was fin- 
ished, I knew that I must write this. There’s no 
more to be said, dear.’ 

‘Ah, well,’ replies Sylvia, ‘there’s much to be 
said for a purpose formed on such a morning as this: 
one can’t help distrusting the midnight.’ 

Precisely! The midnight is unworthy of con- 
fidence. Now and again, as my imaginary critic 
points out, a really noble decision is reached in the 
evening. J have even heard of people being con- 
verted after dark. It occurs much less frequently 
than one would suppose. Although most of the 
evangelistic propaganda of the Church is carried on 
by artificial light, the majority of conversions take 
place in the daytime. I made a list this morning 
of a score of historic conversions; and, so far as 
I could find, only three of the twenty took place 
at night. Moreover, there is this to be considered: 
The good decisions reached after sunset are, as a 
rule, the fruition of thoughts, aspirations, and con- 
victions that have been cherished companions of 
sunlit hours; whilst, generally speaking, the bad 
decisions reached after sunset are registered in a 


A Morning Mind 71 


gust of passion, of anger or of excitement, and in 
defiance of the sober judgment of the daylight. The 
happy man is the man who reduces to a minimum 
the contrast between Philip drunk and Philip sober, 
the distinction between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 
He will give his emotions such play in the daytime 
that they will not be unduly elated at their complete 
emancipation at night; and he will keep his judg- 
ment so alert in the evening that the chances of 
serious intoxication will be small. That happy man 
will be too astute to make any decisions after sunset. 
Like Sylvia Moorhouse, he will distrust the mid- 
night. When a resolution must needs be taken after 
the shadows have fallen, he will take it so guardedly 
and cautiously that it will bring in its train no 
aftermath of regret. Every morning he will approve 
in the sunshine the decisions that he reached in the 
lamplight; and every evening, as he reviews the day 
from his observatory by the fireside, his heart will 
find no reason to be ashamed of his head. 

An excellent example of a good decision being 
reached after dark occurs in With Christ at Sea— 
the autobiography of Frank T. Bullen. He tells us 
how, when the ship was lying at Port Chalmers, 
he and a number of the other sailors went ashore 
one night after supper and heard the sound of sing- 
ing proceeding from an old sail-loft. Moved by 
curiosity they mounted the stairs and sat down. The 
leader announced ‘Jesus, Lover of my soul.’ “The 
singers burst into the opening bars of “Hollingside” 


92 The Crystal Pointers 


and I was reduced to blind dumbness. The pent-up 
feelings of years broke loose, scalding tears ran 
down, and something stuck in my throat like a ball. 
I had not heard the hymn since the happy days in 
the old chapel.’ Something in the nature of an 
address followed. ‘I do not know how long it 
lasted ; I only knew that something was being offered 
to me that I felt I must have. At the close, the 
speaker invited all who were moved to seek the Lord 
to stay behind for further consideration of the 
matter. Had my chum, whose existence I had 
forgotten, risen and said “Come along,” I fear I 
should have gone. But to my unspeakable relief, 
instead of doing so, he leaned towards me whisper- 
ing “I should like to stop, old man!’ “So should I!” 
I replied, eagerly, and that night the great decision 
was made.’ 

But let me ask two questions. ‘That night the 
great decision was made; but was that the beginning 
of it? I turn back a few pages and I find the young 
sailor in Sydney Harbor. ‘Often,’ he says, ‘I would 
stand on deck when my ship was anchored in Syd- 
ney Harbor on Sunday morning and listen to the 
church bells playing “Sicilian Mariners” with a 
dull ache at my heart, a deep longing for something, 
I knew not what. The decision that night at Port 
Chalmers was only the fruition of those morning 
yearnings, after all!’ 

And my second question. The decision was 
reached in the lamplight; but how did it look in the 


A Morning Mind 73 


sunshine? ‘The next day,’ Frank Bullen says, a little 
further on, ‘the next day was Sunday, and, rising 
at four in the morning, I dressed and went ashore, 
climbing up to the top of Flagstaff Hill, And there, 
alone in the sweet freshness of the morning, I 
remained for two hours, saturated with an unspeak- 
able joy. The beauty of land and sea and sky as 
the rising of the sun touched it with celestial gold, 
the waking of the birds, and, above all, the intimate 
certain sense of the presence of God, settled down 
upon my soul and, filled me with such happiness as 
I think must be a foretaste of Heaven. I had just 
discovered in this God a loving, tender Father! 
Inexplicable, indefinite, but a recompense for any 
amount of hardship, was this new life communicated 
by the touch of Jesus.’ 

‘One cannot help distrusting the midnight! says 
Sylvia Moorhouse, and I agree with her. But when 
midnight decisions are preceded by such sunlit aspira- 
tions and followed by such pure morning joy as this, 
they leave the realm of suspicion and evoke the 
felicitations of men and angels. 


VIL 
MAY AND DECEMBER 


May and December! December and May! Here in 
Australia they arrive together. In the actual Decem- 
ber we get the traditional May. To those of us 
whose childhood was spent in the Old Land, the 
merry month of May stands immemorially associ- 
ated with thoughts of the swallows skimming grace- 
fully over the millpond, of nightingales singing 
blithely down in the copse, of finches chattering 
excitedly in the hazels, of buttercups spreading their 
cloth of gold over wayside meadows, of winding 
lanes loaded with the delicious perfume of the haw- 
thorn, and of the gorse breaking into a blaze of 
glory on every heath, common, and moor. But in 
Australia these Maytime splendors—or their antipo- 
dean equivalents—make their appearance towards 
the end of the year. We get the body of December 
with the soul of May. The year dies singing. It 
is a kind of parable, a reflection of one of life’s most 
charming phases. December and May often delight 
in each other’s society. The very young and the very 
old—those whose springtime is just dawning and 
those whose autumn leaves have fallen—frequently 
find mutual enrichment in association with each 


74 


May and December 75 


other. A Mosgiel memory rushes back upon me as 
1 write. 

When I first settled in that littl New Zealand 
township, May was quite a girl. She had, I think, 
just left school. I remember meeting her one eve- 
ning soon after my settlement. Until that evening 
I had only seen her sitting with her parents in the 
church. I was crossing the fields to visit a sick man 
at an outlying farm. As far as I could see, I was 
monarch of all I surveyed; there was not a soul 
in sight. But, as I approached the slip-panel that 
guarded a gap in the gorse hedge, I heard, not far 
away, the clear, sweet trill of a happy girlish voice. 
The hedge temporarily concealed us from each other, 
and I could tell, by the glad abandon of her song, 
that she, too, fancied that she had the fields all to 
herself. As I neared the panel I caught sight of 
her. She wore a white frock; she carried her hat 
in her hand, swinging it rhythmically to the lilt of 
her song; and the wind was playing with the wealth 
of auburn hair that streamed like a cataract of gold 
over her shoulders. I lifted the panel to let her 
through; she saw me, and her song died on the 
instant. She blushed, and made as though to restore 
her hat to its natural place, but I out-manceuvred 
her by extending my hand. 

‘Well, May,’ I exclaimed, ‘I little dreamed ae 
meeting you out in the fields this evening!’ 

‘Oh!’ she replied, with a laugh, ‘you'll often catch 
me here if you come about this time. I slip across 


76 The Crystal Pointers 


whenever I can to see old Mrs. December. She 
lives in the little cottage among the blue-gums yon- 
der. It would be a great treat for her if you could 
look in on her some time.’ 

I promised that I would, and we parted. I fre- 
quently called on Mrs. December after that. Mrs. 
December was not, of course, her real name; but 
what has that to do with it? It fits her ever so 
much better than her real name, and everybody who 
loves the old lady would wish her to have the things 
that suit her best. Often, when I called at the cot- 
tage, May was there. Sometimes she was curled 
up on the hearth-rug with her head resting on the 
old lady’s lap; sometimes she was sitting in front 
of the fire, with her feet on the fender, reading aloud 
from a magazine or a favorite book; sometimes she 
was setting the tea things, dusting the shelves, or 
attending to little matters of the house. Mrs. 
December was a quiet little body with jet-black hair, 
a kindly contented face, and hands that seemed 
dreadfully worn and wrinkled. Her wedding ring 
greatly interested me; it looked like a slender thread 
twined round her thin, thin finger, the years had 
stolen so much of the gold. She wore, summer 
and winter, a quaint old-fashioned cap, and a little 
grey shawl crossed over her breast. She possessed 
quite a collection of spectacles—one pair to wear 
when she was eating, one to wear when she was 
reading, one to wear when she went out, and so on. 
She was always getting them mixed up, and putting 


| May and December a9 


the wrong glasses in the wrong cases. May seemed 
to spend half her time sorting them out for her, and, 
to make sure that she was doing the work correctly, 
she used to test them by putting them on. I can 
hear the old lady’s laughter now as she watched 
with amusement the gay young face in glasses. If 
she laughed too much, her cap got all awry, and 
then May laughed at her, called her a ‘giddy old 
thing,’ and told her she ought to be thoroughly 
ashamed of herself. And then they would both 
laugh together. They seemed to thoroughly under- 
stand each other, these two. 

In those days, the days that immediately followed 
my settlement, Mrs. December sometimes came to 
church. If Sunday morning broke in blue skies and 
genial sunshine, May would scamper off after break- 
fast, arrange with one of the farmers to call with 
his gig at Mrs. December’s cottage, and then hurry 
on ahead to get the old lady ready for her outing. 
Mrs. December was a queenly little soul, and liked 
every ribbon to be in its place on these great occa- 
sions. Before setting out, May would walk round 
her, inspect her from every point of view; and go 
into raptures of admiration after each scrutiny. 
Mrs. December scolded—and smiled. 

This was in my early days. Two or three years 
later a change came. May found other fish to fry. 
Hector, a farmer’s son, who had often driven Mrs. 
December and May to church on those lovely summer 
mornings, won May’s heart, and I married them. 


78 The Crystal Pointers 


Her love-making by no means interfered with her 
friendship for Mrs. December. I think that, in those 
days, she was at the cottage even more than usual, 
and I suspect that she had a few secrets that the old 
lady did not share. Mrs. December was at the wed- 
ding: it was the last time she ever came out. She 
lived for several years after that, but she was too 
frail to climb the gig or to cross the fields. Upon 
poor May troubles came thick and fast. Exactly 
a year after the wedding I buried her baby boy; 
then Hector met with a painful accident that made 
him an invalid for one year and a cripple for 
another ; and, a little later, May herself broke down. 
Through those trying years it was a very well- 
worn track that led from the new home to the old 
cottage. 

‘T must go and have a talk with Mrs. December!’ 
May used to say, when life pressed upon her hardly; 
and, as on the occasion on which I met her first, 
she always came back singing. When I saw, in the 
earlier days, how much Mrs. December owed to 
May, and when I saw, in the later days, how much 
May owed to Mrs. December, I used to wonder 
which of the twain gained the most from the friend- 
ship of the other. 

‘T really don’t know what I should do without 
May,’ exclaimed Mrs, December one summer eve- 
ning, as we sat together in her little garden and 
watched May vanishing across the fields. 

Years afterwards, on the evening of the day on 


May and December 79 


which we laid Mrs. December’s poor little body in 
its grave, I called on May. 

‘Oh, the comfort that she was to me!’ she cried, 
burying her face in her hands. ‘I don’t know how 
I could have lived through it all if it had not been 
for her!’ 

There it is! Love sees to it that, in every partner- 
ship which she arranges, no person gains at. the 
expense of another. She manages things so skilfully 
that each of the parties to the contract is immeasur- 
ably enriched by the union. 

In one of his charming essays, Charles Wagner 
describes an English countryside in harvest time. 
The day is long; the fields hum with life; every- 
body is toiling from dawn until dusk; the harvest 
calls out all the busy workers. The little village 
itself seems asleep; there are only two classes of 
people in it; there are the very old, and there are 
the very young. The former are too feeble to work 
at the stooks, and the children would only be in the 
way. And so, on the thresholds of the cottages, and 
on benches outside, sit trembling old women and 
palsied grandfathers, their chins supported on their 
canes, watching over groups of playing children. 
In this novel scene, with its suggestion of calm and 
beneficent repose—the old folks having finished 
life’s labor and the young folks having as yet known 
nothing of it—Mr. Wagner sees the world in minia- 
ture. Here are December and May thrown together, 
not by chance, but in the essential nature of things! 


Bo The Crystal Pointers 


The comradeship, viewed in this setting, appears to 
be perfectly natural and perfectly congruous. 
Grouped like this, December seems to belong to May, 
and. May to December. 

They gravitate towards each other. When Gold- 
smith’s. veteran of the wars 


Wept o’er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, 
Shouldered his crutch and show’d how fields were won, 


none listened to his story with more rapt and 
wondering admiration than did the boys of the 
village. We all remember Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 
telling delineation of the romance of Grandfather’s 
Arm-chair. Charles Wagner applies his parable of 
the village in harvest-time in much the same way. 
He points out that old people dearly love to tell 
of the things that have been and are now no more. 
And these are the very things about which the chil- 
dren love to hear. Even when the eyes are heavy 
with sleep, the ears are insatiable and the lips cry 
for more. ‘No stage, with all the magic of its wires 
and lights, is,’ he says, ‘equal to the arm-chair of 
grandfather, The little ones climb on his knees. 
Their eyes are fixed on his, and they prize the 
permission to handle the head of his cane or stroke 
his long white beard. Never again in our lives do 
we find anything so interesting. What are the 
romances that we read later on, all made of trans- 
parent fictions and cumbered with literature? what 
are the most famous plays or thrilling dramas com- 
pared with what we listened to as children, with 


May and December 8x 


that freshness of impression to which everything 
is new and with the naive trust to which everything 
is true?’ In the eyes of May, a halo of wonder 
and romance appears to encircle the furrowed brow 
of December, and the world has gained immeasur- 
ably as a result of that childish veneration. 

But let no one suppose that the benefit is all on 
one side. If it is good for May to exploit the golden 
memories and imbibe the mellow wisdom of Decem- 
ber, it is no less good for December to hear the 
pealing laughter and be infected by the fresh young 
gaiety of May. The rippling merriment and death- 
less hopefulness of youth keep men from hurrying 
into premature senility. Moreover, the matter has 
its practical implications. No man of our time has 
been heard by the medical fraternity with greater 
respect than was Sir William Osler, who, until 
recently, was Regius Professor of Medicine at 
Oxford University. Upon no point did Sir William 
lay more stress than in his appeals to the old and 
young doctors to keep in touch with each other. In 
his famous lectures he returns to the subject again 
and again. Inthe medical profession—and in every 
other—the tendency is for the older men to regard 
the younger ones as upstarts, and for the younger 
men to regard their seniors as fossils. It may be 
true, and often is, that both old and young behave 
in a way that earns for them these ugly epithets. 
That circumstance, so far from mitigating the mis- 
fortune, only intensifies the magnitude of the 


82 The Crystal Pointers 


calamity. ‘I wish,’ Sir William exclaims fervidly, 
‘I wish that the older practitioners would remember 
how important it is to encourage and utilize the 
young men who settle near them.’ The young doc- 
tor is fresh from the university; his brain is sim- 
mering with new ideas; he has at his command the 
fruits of science’s very latest researches; he has 
listened, with wondering eyes, to the last word that 
wisdom has spoken. ‘If,’ says our brilliant Profes- 
sor, “if the old doctor has any soft arteries in his grey 
cortex, he will be able to pick up many valuable 
points from this young fellow; and, on the other 
hand, there is a vast amount of clinical wisdom 
floating about in each parish which is now wasted, 
and which dies with the old doctor, simply because 
he and the younger men have never been on friendly 
terms.’ “The old doctor,’ Sir William says again 
later, ‘must walk with the boys, else he is lost— 
irrevocably lost. I would not have him to be a 
basil plant, feeding on the brains of the bright 
young men; but if he is to keep his mind receptive, 
plastic, and impressionable, he must travel with the 
men who are doing the work of the world, the men 
between the ages of twenty-five and forty.’ Those 
who have read Ralph Connor’s Doctor of Crow’s 
Nest, will remember that, at a critical stage in the 
development of the story, a situation of the kind 
depicted by Sir William Osler holds the reader’s 
attention. When Barney Boyle, aspiring to the 
medical profession, goes to see the local practitioner, 


May and December 83 


Dr. Ferguson, about it, the experienced surgeon 
laughs at his presumption. But, on reflection, it 
occurs to him that it would do him a world of good 
to review all his earlier studies in this young fel- 
low’s company, and to see things from his youthful 
point of view; and, in the issue, both men profit by 
the happy comradeship. Again, in one of his famous 
Yale Lectures, Dr. Phillips Broks recalls the re- 
markable effect upon his own mind of a day or 
two spent in the society of a young minister whose 
ordination had taken place only a few months 
before. ‘He was in the first flush and fervor of 
his new experience,’ says the great preacher, ‘and 
in listening to him I recalled much of the spirit with 
which I myself began many years ago.’ Contact 
with this young enthusiast revived in the heart of 
one of the world’s most eminent ministers the fresh- 
ness and fervor of his earlier days. There is evi- 
dently a vast amount of wisdom underlying the 
arrangement by which, in the case of humans, several 
generations dwell upon the face of the earth con- 
temporaneously, enjoying a possibility of cultivating 
each other’s society to their mutual advantage. 

I was chatting yesterday with Gerald Calder, the 
secretary of the Church at Bellhaven. The minister 
of that congregation recently died, and Gerald is 
naturally concerned about the appointment of a 
successor. 

‘I can see,’ he said, ‘that we shall have a good 
deal of difficulty. The young people have set their 


84 The Crystal Pointers 


hearts on having a young minister, and the older 
folk want one of ripe wisdom and long experience. 
I scarcely know what to do.’ 

These well-meaning people at Bellhaven are very 
foolish. Their arguments sound plausible, but there 
is nothing in them. The most beautiful relation- 
ship often exists between May and December. I 
think of the grizzled old men who, thirty years ago, 
welcomed me to Mosgiel. I was a callow youth, 
fresh from an English college; they were in their 
December days. But no tie could have been stronger 
than the tie that bound us together until, one by 
one, they dropped into their graves. And when 
Gerald Calder told me that the young people must 
have a young minister, I thought of the days of my 
boyhood. Our minister was a very old man of 
gracious demeanor, gentle voice, and sunny coun- 
tenance. We boys found it wonderfully easy to 
_ believe that he was God’s messenger to us. When 
he entered the pulpit, we listened as though it had 
been revealed to us that he had just come from the 
presence of the Unseen, and during the week we 
opened our hearts to him as we should have hesi- 
tated to do to a younger man. 

And, besides, what does it matter? For these 
people at Bellhaven, in worrying about the minister’s 
age, are leaving out of sight the essential factor in 
the situation. ‘The essential factor in the situation 
is the fact that, whatever the age of the minister, 
the Saviour Whom he preaches is the delight alike 


May and December 85 


of May and of December. When we are out in 
middle life, pressed by many cares and subjected 
to many temptations, we may forget Him and let 
our worldly hearts grow cold. But children and old 
people—May and December—never fail to recognize 
the magic of His name. That is what Mr. G, T. 
Coster means when he sings that 
Aged men and blooming maidens, 
Young men, children sweet, 
Bring their crowns of adoration 
To His feet. 
Let the people of Bellhaven invite a minister— 
whatever his years—who knows how to unfold the 
unsearchable riches of Christ, and they will yet see 
May and December coming hand in hand to dedicate 
themselves to His service. 


VIII 
THE WIREPULLER 


Wirepullers are mostly women and women are 
mostly wirepullers. I may as well blurt it out in 
the opening sentence and get it off my conscience. 
In the interests of sober truth and simple justice, 
the statement had to be made: I could never have 
got to the end of this screed of mine without it. This 
being so, the sooner it is out the better. 1 am quite 
aware, of course, that my bald statement will please 
nobody. I might just as well have poked my stick 
into a hornet’s nest. I am neither a prophet nor 
the son of one. It is not mine to cast the horo- 
scope of the days that lie hidden in the future; yet 
T see distinctly what will happen. I shall stroll one 
evening into a room in which a few of my gentle- 
men friends are lounging at their ease. I shall be 
saluted stiffly, coldly, distantly, and greeted by each 
with the merest nod. The hum of conversation 
and the bursts of laughter that I heard as I came up 
the hall will give place, when I enter, to a stony 
silence. But the silence will not last for ever. 
Armstrong is the most daring spirit in this charmed 
circle and usually acts as spokesman for the rest. 
‘And so,’ he will exclaim, suddenly removing his 
cigar and fastening upon me a look beneath which 
86 


The Wirepuller 87 


I am expected to perceptibly shrivel, ‘and so we 
are the puppets and the women pull the strings! A 
pretty compliment to pay to your sex, I must say!’ 

I foresee, too, that, in the course of my afternoon’s 
visiting, I shall chance upon the ‘at home’ day of 
one of my lady friends. I shall endeavor to excuse 
myself, but it will not be easy. 

‘No, no,’ the fair hostess will exclaim, ‘you must 
come in and shake hands. Do! These ladies,’ she 
will add, as we enter her beautiful drawing-room, 
‘these ladies have just been talking about something 
you have said about us. What was it, Mrs. Pinker- 
ton? You must state the case on our behalf.’ 

‘Oh, we women are all schemers, you know, dear,’ 
Mrs. Pinkerton will reply with a haughty smile and 
the faintest inclination of her head towards myself, 
‘we are designing creatures, full of all kinds of 
craftiness, given to intrigue and all that kind of 
thing. It’s very nice to be told in so many words 
just what some gentlemen think of us; very nice?’ 

And yet, although, like a skilful meteorologist, 
I am able to foresee that this terrible storm must 
inevitably break upon my head, the dark clouds 
rolling up from two directions simultaneously, I 
deliberately repeat the declaration that threatens to 
whelm me in so much trouble. I stand like Ajax 
defying the lightning, or like Athanasius against the 
world. ‘I can,’ as Luther exclaimed, ‘do no other!’ 
Wirepullers, 1 say, are mostly women and women 
are mostly wirepullers. 


88 The Crystal Pointers 


Why, I should like to know, are these gentlemen 
in the snuggery and these ladies in the drawing-room 
so ready to suppose that the statement veils a 
sinister significance? I aver that it is made without 
the slightest disparagement to either sex and without 
the slightest disrespect. On the contrary, I intend 
it to be construed as a perfectly golden compliment; 
and I cannot help thinking that, when she has 
reviewed the matter at her leisure, even Mrs. Pinker- 
ton will credit me with a certain admirable knightli- 
ness in having uttered it. For see! There are, as 
the elder Mr. Weller so justly observed to his 
promising son, widders and widders. In precisely 
the same way, there are wirepullers and wirepullers. 
When I say that women are wirepullers, it goes 
without saying that I mean that they are wire- 
pullers of the better class. Neither Mrs. Pinkerton 
nor the most eloquent barrister that she could employ 
would be able to persuade any jury that there was 
a true bill against me. ‘Nonsense!’ the foreman of 
that jury would exclaim, ‘the world is a network of 
wires! What are wires for but to be pulled? And 
if they are to be pulled, somebody ought to pull 
them! And if the women pull the wires that are 
there to be pulled, so much the better for every- 
body! There is not the shadow of a case against 
the accused! The so-called libel is a compliment! 
The ladies ought to be very much obliged to him?’ 
Precisely! And so, for the matter of that, ought 
the gentlemen. It may not, at first blush, seem 


The Wirepuller 89 


altogether flattering to suggest that men—even 
eminent men—are puppets who only perform when 
the strings are pulled by feminine hands concealed 
behind the curtains. Yet even this unattractive sym- 
bolism is worthy of a second thought. Let my 
censor in the snuggery consider! Let him make 
the case against me as black as he will! He will say 
that I have suggested that, when men move, it is 
because women pull the strings. As a matter of 
fact, those are not my words; but we will not quibble. 
Let my accuser proceed. After the fashion of this 
kind, he will, of course, cite an extreme case. Let 
him! He will point to some eminent personage— 
a distinguished poet, a celebrated painter or—his eye 
resting on the marble bust of Gladstone that adorns 
the corner of the snuggery—an illustrious statesman. 
‘They are all puppets, I suppose,’ he will exclaim, 
with fine scorn, ‘and the women pull the strings!’ 
It will be observed that, in point of fact, my state- 
ment was far less sweeping. But again we will let 
that pass. Does my indignant friend in the cosy 
arm-chair really fail to see all that is involved in his 
own statement? Even suppose, for the sake of 
argument, that I did allege that Tennyson and 
Millais and Gladstone were mere puppets and that 
softer hands pulled the strings! Is it not obvious 
that figures that, thus agitated and inspired, could 
move as these figures moved, must have been, in 
themselves, perfect masterpieces of mechanism? 
They moved in such a way that the whole world 


90 The Crystal Pointers 


was the better for their movements! It is no ordi- 
nary puppet that, responding to invisible agitation, 
can produce results like these! 

Armstrong, enthroned in his arm-chair, holding 
his cigar between his fingers, and seeming to see 
faces in the curling smoke, speaks of our distin- 
guished poets. Well, what about Wordsworth? In 
her charming little monograph on Wordsworth, Miss 
Masson has told us that we owe all that the poet 
achieved to the skilful wirepulling of his sister. But 
for Dorothy, she says, Wordsworth would have 
been swept away in his youth by the political tumults 
of his time. It was Dorothy who reminded him of 
his powers, recalled him to his desk, and pointed him 
along the road that led to destiny. 

Nor does my friend’s significant glance at the 
marble bust in the corner carry with it the conviction 
upon which he counts. For even Gladstone was 
something of a puppet. I have been reading Mrs. 
Drew’s delightful biography of Mrs. Gladstone. It 
is well to have our misapprehensions, and espe- 
cially our unjust misapprehensions, authoritatively 
corrected. The world has always credited Mrs. 
Gladstone with having inspired those aspirations 
towards retirement that overtook Mr. Gladstone as 
soon as he entered the seventh decade of his remark- 
able life. His illustrious friend, Dr. Chalmers, 
maintained that the allotted span of human existence 
——three score years and ten—should, like the week, 
be divided into seven parts, and that the seventh 


The Wirepuller | QI 


part—the period following the sixtieth birthday— 
should, as far as possible, be regarded as a Sabbatic 
epoch of rest and quiet. Mr. Gladstone accepted 
this view, and, shortly after entering his sixty-first 
year, became eager for retirement. Everybody at 
the time believed that Mrs. Gladstone was prompting 
this new movement. Yet the volume that Mrs. Drew 
has given us proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, 
that the very reverse was the case. When the great 
man threatened to quit for ever the scene of his 
triumphs, it was his wife who pleaded with him to 
continue his work. And, in order that he might 
attach the more weight to her arguments, she stated 
her case in writing. Here is the letter! In it she 
pooh-poohs several minor ailments which Mr. Glad- 
stone had interpreted as premonitions of impending 
decay. These little aches and pains, she tells him, — 
are just safety-valves. Some people are overtaken 
by giddiness of the head or palpitation of the heart, 
and are compelled to take serious warning. But he 
is affected in no such way. He has but to pause, 
get right, pull himself together and go on again. 
She tells him frankly that he is mistaken in sup- 
posing that he can relinquish his great position, and 
then, should a crisis arise, resume the responsibilities 
of leadership. How, in common decency, could he 
toss the reins of government into other hands, and 
then, when the fancy seized him, snatch them from 
those hands again? And could he reasonably expect, 
on rushing back into the fight, to wield the influ- 


92 The Crystal Pointers 


ence and authority that would have been his if, 
throughout the entire struggle, he had borne the 
burden and heat of the day? ‘I know full well,’ 
she said, ‘that your whole soul is bent upon doing 
right. You would go to the death in a righteous 
cause. Who could hold you when the battle-cry 
sounded?’ She implores him to confer with several 
friends, whose names she mentions, before taking 
the irrevocable step that he contemplates; and, as a 
result, she gave her husband back to the public life 
of his country. The quarter of a century that fol- 
lowed proved the most notable, the most eventful 
and the most momentous period in Mr. Gladstone’s 
wonderful career. Looking back upon it afterwards 
Mr. Gladstone himself said that ‘the best and hap- 
piest period of my life dates from my sixtieth birth- 
day. Had I even died at three score years and ten,’ 
he added, ‘fully half my life-work would have 
remained undone.’ History can furnish no more 
brilliant example of wise and sagacious wirepulling. 
Mrs. Drew places it on record with evident gratifi- 
cation. When Armstrong glances meaningly at the 
marble bust in the corner, I shall tell this story to 
the assembled company and I fancy that the ice will 
melt as I unfold it. I shall be asked to come nearer 
the fire and there will be other signs of contrition. 
And when I have to meet Mrs. Pinkerton’s on- 
slaught, I shall repeat the tale over the tea-cups, and 
I can imagine the flush of pleasure that will mantle 
the cheeks of my fair hearers in the drawing-room. 


The Wirepuller 93 


It is a chapter in our imperial history of which no 
man need feel ashamed and of which the womanhood 
of the world may very well be proud. 

Yes, wirepullers are mostly women and women 
are mostly wirepullers. I have watched them at 
their work. And I have noticed that the success of 
wirepulling depends very largely on the directness 
of the pull on the wire. If the wire has to go round 
too many corners, or over too many wheels, the 
thing becomes complicated, and the energy invested 
in the pull at one end becomes dissipated before it 
reaches the other. Let me cite a case in point. Look 
at this letter lying on my desk! It is from a very 
excellent young lady connected with my congre- 
gation: 

‘Dear Sir,—My friend, Jessie Strachan, called 
to see me this afternoon and was saying how 
pleased she is that her brother, C laude, is attending 
the evening services. She asked me, as I know 
you, to write begging you to speak to him about 
his soul. She has for a long time desired to do 
so herself, but doesn’t like to. She thinks that a 
word from you would do good,’ 

Every minister of any experience has received 
scores of such letters. They represent the first 
clumsy efforts of well-meaning but immature young 
wirepullers. When Jessie Strachan gets a little 
older, she will discover that the secret of successful 
wirepulling lies in the direct pull. As yet, she has 
not learned that lesson. She wants to influence her 


94 The Crystal Pointers 


brother, so she runs her wire round my lady friend, 
and then round me, and she gets it entangled with 
the Church en route. I have seen a good deal of this 
kind of wirepulling, but I have never yet seen it 
achieve success. Let Jessie Strachan make a direct 
pull upon her brother! Let her show him by her 
ready sympathy, her sisterly affection, and her sweet 
helpfulness, what a lovely thing religion is. And 
then, her gentle yet noble behavior having won his 
confidence and admiration, and given her a queenly 
authority over him, let her carefully select her time 
and modestly unfold to him the wonderful secret of 
her own deep peace and joy! And she will be 
astonished at his readiness to share her radiant expe- 
rience with her. The more direct the pull, the more 
effective it must of necessity be. 

I should like Jessie Strachan to read the Life of 
Cardinal Vaughan. For Cardinal Vaughan’s mother 
was the most brilliantly successful wirepuller of 
whom I have ever heard. She became a Roman 
Catholic just before her marriage, and threw herself 
with all her heart and soul into the worship and serv- 
ice of that Church. In course of time, she became 
the mother of eight sons and five daughters. For 
this great family of hers she had one passionate 
aspiration: she yearned unceasingly that all her boys 
might become priests and that all her daughters 
might become nuns. She never preached to them 
or lectured them: it is doubtful if she ever men- 
tioned her desire. But she lost no Opportunity of 


The Wirepuller 95 


magnifying in the eyes of her children the sacred- 
ness and beauty of the life that she so ardently 
coveted for each of them. She skilfully turned every 
conversation in that direction. She took infinite 
pains in telling them stories of splendid heroism and 
magnificent devotion, always taking care that every 
hero should be a priest and every heroine a nun. 
Through all the years in which her children were 
about her knees, she spent an hour a day in prayer, 
pleading in an agony of fervent supplication that 
it might please the Great Head of the Church to 
call every one of her children to serve him in the 
choir or in the sanctuary. She got her way. All 
five of the girls entered convents; and all the eight 
boys went at their own desire to ecclesiastical semi- 
naries. Two never actually became priests; but 
they strongly desired to do so, and only turned back 
because they felt themselves unfitted to serve the 
altar. Let a woman once make up her mind what 
it is that she wants; let her conscience applaud her 
desire; let her learn the subtle secret of the direct 
pull; and there is scarcely any limit to the triumph 
that this wondrous wirepuller will achieve. It was 
so ordained. 





DAR Ll 





T 
THE YOKE OF YOUTH 


Ir is past eleven as Roy Blackburn turns his latch- 
key in the door. It is stocktaking time at the office, 
and, night after night, he has been under the irk- 
some necessity of returning to his desk. He enters 
the dining-room, and, tired out, throws himself 
into the comfortable arm-chair that is drawn up 
ready for him beside a blazing fire. He does not 
even trouble to light the gas: the room is cheerfully 
—and restfully—illumined by the flickering firelight. 
Half-an-hour ago, Roy’s landlady and her husband, 
Mr. and Mrs. Holloway, had occupied the arm-chairs 
on either side of the fire, and in the hope that 
Roy would yet join them, had sat chatting there a 
little later than usual. Abandoning at length all 
hope of his appearance, they had gone to bed; but, 
before doing so, Mrs. Holloway had spread his 
supper on the table, and had left the kettle singing 
merrily upon the trivet. 

Stretching out his legs and burying his hands in 
his pockets, Roy resigns himself for a few minutes 
to the seductions of the cosy chair; the cakes and 
cocoa that Mrs. Holloway has so temptingly pre- 
pared can wait a little. He reflects gratefully that 


99 


100 The Crystal Pointers 


the tiresome business that has monopolized so many 
of his evenings is finished at last; and is glad that, 
for awhile at least, the hours after tea will be once 
more his own. Roy is a tremendous fellow, and is 
extremely popular both at the office and among his 
friends. He is tall, square-shouldered, and sturdily 
built, with pleasant face and laughing eyes. He 
impresses you as being clean and straight and open- 
hearted. His curly black hair falls in ringlets about 
his lofty forehead. He came of age last Easter, but 
looks a year or two older. He is a great athlete, and 
is proud of his silver trophies. Generous to a fault, 
he would make any sacrifice to help a friend. As he 
lolls back in the chair, his eye is attracted by a large 
sheet of paper lying on the hearthrug, smothered 
from top to bottom in the pencilled scrawl of Mrs. 
Flolloway’s little daughter. Roy and Birdie are 
great chums. He picks it up; leans forward so that 
the firelight may fall full upon it; and reads with a 
smile the words that Birdie had been so industri- 
ously scribbling. It is evidently the text that she 
has been asked to learn for next Sunday. At her 
mother’s suggestion, Birdie has written it twenty 
times. It is good for a man that he bare the yoak 
im his yooth. Roy chuckles over the mistakes in the 
spelling, promising himself heaps of fun at Birdie’s 
expense in the morning, and then proceeds to mix 
his cocoa and enjoy his lonely supper. Having dis- 
posed of the last morsel, he again yields himself 
without reserve to the comforts of the chair. He 


The Yoke of Youth “IOI 


glances at the companion chair on the opposite side 
of the hearth, and wishes that Aggie were occupying 
it. 

‘Poor old Aggie!’ he says to himself, ‘I have 
scarcely seen her this week: she will think [Pm 
cooling off: I must make up for lost time to- 
morrow)’ 

He lights a cigarette, smokes it, tosses the butt 
into the fire, and closes his eyes. And then that 
strange thing happens which, under similar circum- 
stances, overtakes us all. His exhausted brain, worn 
out, goes to sleep; his restive imagination, eager for 
exercise, wakes up; and out of that whimsical com- 
bination of contrarieties is spun the stuff that dreams 
are made of. In a moment it seems to him that the 
arm-chair opposite is no longer vacant. It is occu- 
pied, and occupied by himself! And yet, as he 
scrutinizes the face more closely, he doubts whether 
it is indeed himself. The man opposite looks several 
years older: the face more sedate and serious. 
Another moment, and it is clear that the figure in 
the other chair is undergoing some magic meta- 
morphosis; he is now a bearded man in the full tide 
of life. A stately and beautiful woman—in whose 
fine features Roy thinks he recognizes some trace 
of Aggie—moves busily about him; whilst little 
children scamper in and out and clamber on his 
knee. And now his raven hair is black no longer: 
it is silver-grey; he wears spectacles: and young 
men and women approach him with reverent fond- 


102 The Crystal Pointers 


ness and filial regard. One of them has a little 
child in her arms. Again, his hair is snowy-white. 
He is no longer erect, nimble and athletic: his back is 
bent: his face is wizened and his brow furrowed. 
He is very, very old. Roy waits, expecting the 
vision to change its form—as the previous visions 
have done. But, unlike the others, this vision 
remains. The old man holds his place in the oppo- 
site chair, breathing heavily, and muttering some- 
thing about being too old to work and too proud to 
beg. He looks unhappy, Roy thinks; and, now that 
he has time to inspect him more minutely, he notices 
that his clothes are sadly worn and faded. Now, 
too, for the first time, Roy addresses his strange 
companion. 

“You look miserable, old man, have you no one 
whose duty it is to care for you?’ 

‘Only youl’ replies the aged figure, in a voice so 
hollow and melancholy that it makes Roy start in 
his slumber. 

“You look neglected, old man,’ Roy goes on; ‘have 
you no one to feed, clothe, and support you? 

‘Only youl 

The mournful ejaculation comes back in the same 
sepulchral tone. Again Roy starts and moves un- 
easily in his chair. 

“You will soon be dying, old man,’ Roy says, 
speaking a third time; ‘have you no one to bury 
your’ 

‘Only youl’ 


The Yoke of Youth 103 


The words are repeated with a monotony so dis- 
mal that they startle the sleeper out of his dreams. 
He awakes with a shiver. He is cold. The fire 
has burned itself out. The room is dark and chilly. 
Roy sits bolt upright; rubs his eyes; and then strains 
them in a prolonged stare at the arm-chair oppo-_ 
site. It looks ghostly in its emptiness. He rises, 
stretches himself, and, smiling at his own weird 
fancies, goes to bed. All this happened many 
years ago. 

Roy went to bed that night, but not to sleep. 
His fancy was teased in turns by the text upon 
the floor and the phantom in the chair. He scarcely 
knew what Birdie’s ill-spelt text had to do with the 
tottering old figure in the arm-chair; but, at such 
times, the most incongruous and ill-assorted things 
associate themselves with each other in our confused 
and drowsy brains. And so, though poor Roy turned 
and twisted upon his pillow to avoid them, the text 
kept saying: It is good for a man that he bear the 
yoke in his youth; it is good for a man that he bear 
the yoke in his youth; it is good for a man that 
he bear the yoke in his youth; and the withered 
figure in the chair kept saying, ‘Only you! Only 
you! Only your But Roy was very tired; and 
after awhile, Nature asserted her authority. The 
two voices—the voice of Birdie’s text and the voice 
of the figure in the chair—grew fainter and fainter. 
They seemed to come from the other side of the 
room; then from the other side of the street; then 


104 The Crystal Pointers 


from an infinite distance away; and then they faded 
into silence. Poor Roy was asleep at last! 

What is it that happens whilst we slumber? How 
is it that I go to sleep confused and wake up clear? 
I go to bed struggling frantically to think of the 
name of a person-I have met, or endeavoring to 
recall a quotation from a poem I have heard. But 
it is of no use; the name is on the tip of my tongue, 
but nothing will induce it to leave that tantalizing 
vantage point; the poem is at the back of my mind, 
but I cannot lure it forward. But, when I awake in 
the morning, the name shouts itself into my ear 
and the poem sings itself into my soul. I go to 
sleep in a torture of indecision and uncertainty: I 
wake up seeing my course set unmistakably before 
me. Rapt Isaiah, with his wild seraphic fire, speaks 
of the treasures of the darkness. I do not know 
exactly what he means: but this must surely be 
one of those treasures. Roy entered into the treas- 
ures of the darkness that night. And when morning 
came, bringing light and joy and energy and love, 
he realized the wealth of his enrichment. For the 
things that, overnight, had been a jumble of con- 
fused ideas, stood harmonized and co-ordinated 
before him, He saw, as clearly as he saw all the other 
objects upon which the sun was shining, the con- 
nection between the text—Birdie’s text—and_ the 
decrepit figure in the arm-chair. 

On the way to the office he could think of nothing 
else. Nature was busy around him. It was in the 


The Yoke of Youth TOS 


early spring-time. Life was breaking into new 
forms everywhere. And, by means of all these 
lovely things, Nature seemed to be whispering a 
secret to Roy’s soul. In spring-time and summer- 
time Nature thinks of autumn-time and winter-time ; 
in the days of her super-abundant vitality she makes 
bountiful provision for the days of her decay. The 
year bears the yoke in its youth. Roy began to 
understand. Life is a thing that has to be levelled 
out: It needs poising, adjusting, balancing. Like 
a torrent in full flood, youth is brimming over with 
vivacious energy. Roy thinks of his silver trophies: 
they are the product of the overflow of his redun- 
dant powers. In youth the blood is tingling in the 
veins; the muscles are itching for exercise; life is 
abounding, exuberant, effervescing. Age, on the 
other hand, is over-loaded, oppressed, overwhelmed. 
It stands appalled at the magnitude of life’s burdens 
and at the meagreness of its own resources. Youth 
is like a balloon without a car: it requires ballast 
and balance. Age is like a car without a balloon; 
it is heavy and hugs the ground. Now Nature 
adjusts this balance very cleverly. The overflow of 
her summer fruitage sustains the barren months of 
wintry desolation. On precisely the same principle, 
she ordains that the superfluity of youthful vigor 
shall nourish and protect the decrepitude of age. 
The process will give ballast to the buoyancy of 
youth: the balloon is the steadier for the car. And 
the crushing misfortunes of old age—the misfor- 


106 The Crystal Pointers 


tunes represented by the phantom of the arm-chair— 
will thus be relieved or altogether averted. As, on 
his way to the train, Roy watches the flowers peep- 
ing, the buds bursting, and the birds building, Nature 
goes a long way towards harmonizing in his mind 
the confused elements that haunted his weary brain 
the night before. He begins to see the connex- 
ion between Birdie’s text on the one hand and the 
desolate figure in the arm-chair on the other. 

In the course of the morning, further light breaks 
upon him. It occurs to him that the firm with which 
he is connected takes no unnecessary risks, They 
make provision for all kinds of contingencies, some 
of which will certainly eventuate, whilst others may, 
never come. ‘The place may never be burned down, 
for example, yet the Company spends a considerable 
sum every year on fire insurance. On the other hand, 
the buildings and machinery are falling slowly, but 
surely, into decay ; they cannot possibly last for ever: 
and Roy notices that, in the balance-sheet, a certain 
amount is written off for depreciation. These hard- 
headed business men have a way of putting a tele- 
scope to their eyes and looking into the distant 
future. The possibilities of coming days are fore- 
seen and provided for. Roy thinks of the wretched 
old man in the arm-chair. He hears once more his 
sad and melancholy accents. ‘Only you!’ he said; 
‘Only you; Only youl He thinks, too, of Birdie’s 
text: It 1s good for a man that he bear the yoke 
in his youth. Roy resolved, that very afternoon, 


The Yoke of Youth 107 


to saddle his strong young shoulders with the burden 
of that yoke. He took pity on the figure in the arm- 
chair, and vowed that he would bring the smile 
back to the old man’s lips and the song back to the 
old man’s soul. That evening he arrived at Pelham 
Place earlier than he had ever done before. He bore 
in his hand a posy of violets. Aggie pretended to 
receive them coldly. 

‘’'m glad,’ she exclaimed, archly, ‘that you still 
remember the way to Pelham Place. I thought you 
might happen to call in again one of these days. 
Why, you don’t look much older, you don’t really? 

He punished her in his own way; she bore it 
with wonderful resignation; and soon afterwards 
discovered that a new excitement was simmering 
in his breast. 

‘You'll never guess what I’ve done this afternoon, 
Aggie;’ he burst out; and as, of course, she couldn’t, 
he told her. ‘I’ve insured my life! It'll cost a heap 
of money; and my wife—if ever I have such a thing 
—will have to help me to keep it up; but I'll get 
quite a fortune out of it when I grow old; and etry) 
don’t happen to grow old, why, then my wife—if 
ever I have such a thing—will get the fortune when 
I die!’ 

She boxed his ears for his pains. ‘What an old 
sobersides it is that has come back to us after all 
this time!’ she exclaimed, pouting prettily. But 
she secretly thought all the more of him. 

The following Sunday they went to church 


108 : The Crystal Pointers 


together. It was one of those luxurious spring 
mornings that make life seem a perfect revelry; and, 
even had the day been dull, there was enough sun- 
shine in their hearts and eyes to make it a delight. 
The service was in keeping with the beauty of the 
morning. It began with the hymn How pleased 
and blest was I! And Roy and Aggie felt that it 
was perfectly attuned to their happiness. And 
then, by one of those odd coincidences that make 
truth so much stranger than fiction, the minister 
preached on Birdie’s text: It is good for a@ man 
that he bear the yoke in his youth. The Rev. George 
Jones was a good old man, honored and revered 
by everybody. He referred to none of the things 
that had so exercised Roy’s mind during the week. 
He began by saying that the text was Lord North- 
cliffe’s favorite text. And, towards the end of his 
discourse, he uttered a few telling sentences that 
neither of the young people ever forgot. 

‘It is,’ he said, ‘the duty of every young man to 
relieve his old age of every burden that he can pos- 
sibly lift from his shoulders. Youth should saddle 
itself with the burden of restraint, so that Age may 
never feel the pressure of remorse. Youth should 
take up the burden of achievement that Age may 
never be crushed beneath a load of shame. As I 
review my own life,’ the preacher added, ‘I am more 
thankful than I can express that, in youth, I was 
Jed to shoulder the strenuous yoke of Christian servy- 
ice: otherwise my old age must have been borne 


The Yoke of Youth 109 


down with bitter and futile regrets. I am some- 
thing like Sir George Burns, whose biography I have 
read this week. George Burns dotted the Atlantic 
with the first steamships, and, at the age of ninety- 
four, was knighted by Queen Victoria. ‘“Men say,” 
he wrote, at about that time, ‘“‘men say that mine has 
been a most prosperous career. It is true, and I am 
thankful for it. But, looking back upon life, as I 
do now, this reflection gives me no satisfaction: 
there is nothing in that fact on which I can rest. 
But when I read, as I have been reading lately, the 
letters written by myself seventy years ago, and when 
I find that, even then, I had definitely decided to 
serve Christ, that knowledge indeed rejoices my 
heart in my old age.” ’ The preacher closed with an 
earnest appeal to the young people in his congrega- 
tion. ‘His yoke is easy,’ he said, ‘and His burden 
is light. Take it upon you, and, to the last day of 
your life, it will multiply all your joys!’ 

On the way home, Roy and Aggie said very little; 
but their thoughts were busy. Very often in the 
happy years that followed, they would talk about 
that service, and, from it, they dated much of their 
felicity. 


II 
THE STOCKMAN 


I was lounging in a deck-chair on the lawn this 
afternoon when the postman handed me Keith Glad- 
den’s bulky letter. It seemed odd to see Keith’s 
familiar handwriting on an envelope smothered with 
Chinese stamps and Chinese postmarks. And it 
seemed stranger still to see the photograph of Keith, 
in Chinese dress, which fell into my lap as soon as 
I opened the envelope. Keith is a missionary in 
Shen-Si, and has, for years, been doing magnificent 
work there. But, when I knew him, he was a boy 
on a New Zealand cattle-run. Keith refers, in his 
letter, to those far-off days. “Do you remember,’ 
he asks, ‘the morning we spent watching the stock- 
men separating from the mob in the home paddock 
the cattle that father was sending down to Sunset 
Creek?’ I remember it perfectly; it was the first 
experience of the kind that I had known; and I 
thought that I had never seen anything so tumul- 
tuous and exciting. 

I can see at this moment those hundreds of cattle 
careering madly about the huge paddock whilst, 
with finely trained horses and resounding whips, the 
stockmen cornered and caught the particular animals 


IIo 


The Stockman Vi 


that they wished separated from the herd. Keith 
and I sat on the sliprail that day and felt the thrill 
of it all as, time after time, the thunder of hoofs 
swept past us. He was tremendously excited, and 
shouted boyish advice and encouragement to the men 
whenever their wild gallop brought them within 
earshot. 

It is not to the incident itself, however, but to 
the conversation to which it led, that Keith refers 
in his letter. I could not help watching him as he 
sat perched on the rail beside me. I thought him 
quite as fascinating as the stirring scene that we 
had come to witness. As I marked his well-knit 
frame and sinewy limbs, his easy and athletic move- 
ments, his fine intelligent face with its flashing eyes 
and its quick changes of expression, and as I felt 
the influence of his boyish innocence and abound- 
ing enthusiasm, I could not help thinking my own 
thoughts about him. And I suppose that my 
thoughts betrayed themselves on our way back to 
the homestead. 

‘Keith,’ I said taking his arm, ‘I wish I could 
do for you what the stockmen have done for the 
cattle that we saw yarded just now!’ 

‘Well, I continued, in answer to his question, ‘I 
often feel, when I look down from the pulpit and 
see your face in the congregation, that I would give 
anything if I could somehow separate you from 
the crowd and make you understand that everything 
I was saying was just for you!’ 


II2 The Crystal Pointers 


One of the stockmen, riding up from behind, 
overtook us just at that moment, and, dismounting, 
walked back with us to the homestead. No more 
was said at the time, therefore, but afterwards Keith 
himself revived the subject. It was after church 
on the following Sunday evening. I had been 
preaching on that monumental text: God so loved 
the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life. I was, as I thought, the last 
to leave the building; but, when I reached the gate, 
I found Keith waiting to walk home with me. 

‘All the while you were preaching,’ he said, ‘I was 
thinking about what you said: and it seemed as 
though you were talking to me alone. Everything 
is so different: I can hardly take it in!’ 

There was a quiver in his voice that told me of 
the depth and intensity of his emotion. I have no 
right to drag into the light of day the sacred con- 
fidences that immediately followed. It is enough 
for my present purpose to say that, at our next com- 
munion, Keith was received into the membership 
of the Church; and, in his letters from Shen-Si, 
he still refers to the morning that we spent together 
at the old homestead as the turning-point in his life. 

The fact is that the only effective congregation 
that a minister can have is a congregation of one. 
In the Life of Edward Payson it is recorded that, 
on a stormy Sunday, the famous preacher had but 
one hearer. Mr. Payson preached his sermon, how- 


The Stockman 113 


ever, as carefully and as earnestly as though the 
great building had been thronged with eager lis- 
teners. Some months afterwards his solitary auditor 
called on him. 

‘I was led to the Saviour through that service,’ 
he said. ‘For, whenever you talked about sin and 
salvation, I glanced round to see to whom you 
referred; but, since there was no one there but 
myself, I had no alternative but to lay every word 
to my own heart and conscience!’ 

Mr. Chesterton says that between one and two, 
there is often a difference of millions. There is 
certainly a difference of millions between a con- 
gregation of one and a congregation of two. A 
congregation of one takes every word in a direct 
and personal and practical sense; but, in a congre- 
gation of two, each auditor takes it for granted that 
the preacher is referring to the other. Nathan had 
a congregation of one when he unfolded his parable 
of the one ewe lamb, and, looking into the face of 
David, cried: Thou art the man! Mr. Payson had a 
congregation of one that wintry morning. And, blest 
in that way, neither Nathan nor Mr. Payson had any 
difficulty in bringing his congregation to its knees. 

The preacher who has a congregation of hundreds 
is in a hopeless situation. A crowd has no con- 
science to be stirred, no heart to be broken, and no 
soul to be saved. The man who stands before a 
crowd can only hope to succeed so far as he knows 
how to disentangle the individual from the mass. 


114 The Crystal Pointers 


Like the stockmen at Keith Gladden’s old home, 
who, riding into a mob of cattle, swiftly and cleverly 
separated from its fellows the animal that they 
required, the preacher must know the secret of seg- 
regating the individual. Wesley and Whitefield, 
Spurgeon and Moody knew how to preach to crowds. 
They conquered the crowd by ignoring it. So far 
from forgetting the individual in the crowd, they 
forgot the crowd in the individual. They liked to 
see a multitude of faces, just as an angler likes to 
feel that his line is surrounded by a multitude of 
fish; it enhances his chance of catching, in quick 
succession, first one fish and then another; but that 
is all. To the great evangelists the crowd was 
simply the multiplied opportunity of individual con- 
quest. 

The converts of these master-preachers have left 
on record some thousands of testimonies. In one 
important respect they are all alike. They all con- 
tain some such phrase as this: ‘He seemed to be 
speaking directly to me, as though I were the only 
person present!’ Take Wesley for example. ‘Wes- 
ley’s words,’ Southey says, ‘were like the eyes of a 
portrait, which seem to look at every beholder.’ One 
of the greatest days in Wesley’s life was June 17, 
1739. It was the day on which he preached for the 
first time at Moorfields. The service was held at 
seven o'clock in the morning, and there were seven 
thousand people present. Mr. Wesley took for his 
text the words: Seek ye the Lord while He may be 


The Stockman iit 


found; call ye upon Him while He is near. Let the 
wicked forsake ms way and the unrighteous man 
his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and 
He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for 
He will abundantly pardon. The service was made 
doubly historic; for, in the first place, it was the 
beginning of the great work at Moorfields, and, in 
the second, it led to the conversion of John Nelson, 
the stonemason, ‘a man who,’ as Southey says, ‘had 
as high a spirit and as brave a heart as ever English- 
man was blessed with.’ A little later, Mr. Wesley 
preached to an immense concourse at Kennington 
on the same text, and, among others, a soldier was 
converted. J have found it extremely interesting 
to piece together, and examine in detail, the records 
of those memorable services. Fortunately, both the 
stonemason and the soldier have reduced to writing, 
as Mr. Wesley liked all his converts to do, the story 
of their experiences. 

‘When Mr. Wesley stood up and stroked back 
his hair,’ says the stonemason, ‘IT thought he fixed 
his eyes on me; and, when he spoke, I thought his 
whole discourse was aimed directly at me!’ 

“When Mr. Wesley began to speak,’ says the 
soldier, ‘his words made me tremble. I thought 
he spoke to no one but me; and I durst not look 
up, for I imagined that all the people were looking 
at me!’ 

On each occasion there were thousands present, 
yet Mr. Wesley made each hearer feel that preacher 


116 The Crystal Pointers 


and listener were alone together. Every man felt as 
David felt when Nathan pointed directly at him and 
cried, Thou art the man! It is a great art. 

Here lies the rationale of all our companionships, 
our comradeships, our partnerships. One of the 
prophets describes two caravans meeting in the 
desert. The first one approaches a certain spot and 
waits there until the other comes up. ‘They did not 
meet by chance,’ the prophet says; ‘they had an 
appointment!’ And he argues that whenever two 
of us meet upon the highway of life, we meet for 
the same reason. It has been so timed and arranged. 
Weare pilgrims of eternity, and we do not cross each 
other’s paths by accident. ‘Can two walk together, 
Amos demands, ‘except by appointment?’? We meet 
as they meet who have important business to trans- 
act the one with the other; we meet as those who 
shall give account of their meeting at the great day. 
We meet; and it can never be, for either of us, as 
though we had never met. We meet, and, having 
met, life can never be quite the same again. That 
is why Elijah looks so earnestly into the face of 
Ahab; that is why Paul deals so faithfully with 
Felix; that is why Nathan points so clearly his 
parable to David; that is why Ambrose deals so 
uncompromisingly with the Emperor Theodosius; 
that is why Savonarola frowns so sternly upon 
Lorenzo the Magnificent; that is why Little Bilney 
pleads so passionately with Father Latimer; that 
is why Latimer himself denounces to his face the 


The Stockman 117 


sins of King Henry the Eighth; that is why John 
Knox hardens his heart against the tears of Mary. 
Each of these men feels that the individual is the 
strategic point in the whole situation. He feels 
that the face into which he looks is the face of an 
immortal; eternal issues are at stake; the meeting 
is divinely ordained; the opportunity is too precious 
to be lost; and he pours out his soul in passionate 
rebuke and persuasive entreaty. I have just read 
the Life of Sampson Stamforth, Matthew Arnold 
thought that Staniforth’s record of his conversion 
deserved to rank with Paul’s narrative of his expe- 
rience on the road to Damascus. Yet, summed up, 
it is simply the story of a friendship. Mark Bond 
and Sampson Staniforth were fellow-soldiers. Their 
camping and campaigning threw them much to- 
gether. Mark Bond felt that their, association was 
no freak of circumstance. He set himself to win his 
comrade for his Saviour; and the record of his suc- 
cess is, aS sO eminent a critic as Matthew Arnold 
confesses, one of the masterpieces of religious liter- 
ature. 

Traveling along this line of research, my foot- 
steps led me to two of the great romances of the 
faith. One is a romance of the ocean; the other is 
a romance of the desert. The first concerns Dr. 
George Augustus Selwyn. When, as the first colo- 
nial bishop, Dr. Selwyn was sent out from Eng- 
land, his See included, not only the whole of New 
Zealand, but all the scattered islands of the Pacific. 


118 The Crystal Pointers 


Undaunted by the magnitude of his task, he resolved 
to attempt the evangelization of these countless 
peoples. He tramped New Zealand from end to end, 
and he bought a schooner—the Undine—on which he 
hoped to visit all the islands. But he saw that, in 
the brief periods that he could snatch from his main 
work in New Zealand, it would be absurd to attempt 
missionary work, in the ordinary sense, along those 
scattered groups. It would take years to acquire 
the languages, understand the customs, and over- 
come the prejudices of the islanders. He determined 
to resort to strategy. The individual must become 
the key to the situation. He took a boy from this 
island and a boy from that one; he persuaded them 
to accompany him to New Zealand; and then he 
bent all his energies to winning them for Christ. 
Afterwards he returned each of these converts to 
his native island to evangelize his own people. In 
this way the Pacific was soon dotted with active 
evangelistic agencies, and the coral reefs and can- 
nibal islands soon heard, from men of their own 
blood and language, the words of life eternal. 

The second of these romances is one of the 
innumerable romances of darkest Africa. ‘Night,’ 
—so runs the story—‘night has fallen on the heart 
of the Soudan. The stars cast their thin streams 
of light serenely down upon a circle of men who are 
gathered on the outskirts of Khartoum. In the 
centre of the circle stands a tall young white mis- 
sionary, athletic in build and powerful of voice.’ 


The Stockman 119 


This young fellow has been oppressed by the con- 
sciousness that, out yonder, beyond the desert, there 
are millions upon millions of natives who have never 
heard the holiest name of all. But how can he help 
them? A sudden inspiration seizes him. They are 
divided into a score of nationalities. He will send 
to each tribe and entreat a man to join him. He will 
make these men the key to the solution of the prob- 
lem. And now, for weeks, he has had his band 
of tribesmen clustered about him. He has spared 
no effort to lead them into the Kingdom of Christ, 
so that they, in turn, may point the way to others. 
The last night has come. ‘To-morrow’—so the 
record continues—‘the little band will break up, and 
each man will go back to his own people. Very 
solemnly, as they sit in the stillness of the night, 
their teacher speaks to them of the work that 
Christ requires of them. He pictures all their diffi- 
culties and their risks—the imminent possibility of a 
cruel death. Then, quite plainly, he puts the issue 
before them: “Which of you is ready and will 
promise aloud to try to make Jesus King of your 
tribe—King over all its heart and lifer’ He waits 
in the darkness for their reply. At first there is 
nothing but silence that can be felt. He knows that 
for many of them the promise may mean death. 
Suddenly one of them breaks the silence with a 
strong, clear voice: “Ina So,” he says, “I will.” 
Then another and another “Ina So”; “Ina So,” they 
say, “I will’; “I will,” till every man in that circle 


120 The Crystal Pointers 


has pledged himself, even at the cost of his life, to 
make Christ King of his own tribe. Then the 
group breaks up and each man seeks his rest till 
daybreak—the break of day that is to witness the 
inauguration of his great task of King-making. 
“Next morning,” says the white man, “I watched 
them go, those King-makers of mine. How they 
fare I shall never know till the great day declares 
1 

It is the old secret, Nathan’s secret, the secret 
of the stockman, the secret of individual conquest. 
The best work in the world is not done wholesale. 
Crowds are only precious for the sake of the indi- 
viduals that compose them. It is only by Nathan’s 
fidelity to David that earth’s vast continents can be 
conquered and its countless islands won. 


Kit 
Pee LADY ORCI TARE 


THE Lady of the Lake would not know herself by 
that name. We ourselves gave it to her. We 
sometimes speak of the cup of tea that we sipped 
in her company as the nicest we have ever tasted. 
The whole experience was tinged with novelty, 
quaintness, and romance. We were boating on one 
of Australia’s vast inland waters. For hours we 
had been poking about among the picturesque little 
coves and inlets, admiring the riot of forestry, the 
exquisite reflections, and the abundance of wild life. 
As the nose of the boat glided silently round each 
point, thousands of swans, pelicans, cranes, and 
moorhens rose in noisy and excited alarm, whilst, 
every now and again, a big brown kangaroo would 
go bounding up through the tangle of bush. Pres- 
ently we came upon a waterway that differed from 
the rest. It ran back so deeply among the hills that 
we fancied that it must be a river pouring its waters 
into the lake. We set out to explore. At each turn 
and twist, a fresh panorama of beauty was unfolded 
to us. After persevering for half an hour, we came 
to the end of the water: it was only an arm of the 
lake after all. But, as we were preparing to return, 
a fresh wonder unfolded itself. We discovered a 
121 


122 The Crystal Pointers 


track leading up through the bush; and, on a tree 
near the water’s edge, we read the words, “Af ter- 
noon Tea.’ In this outlandish spot the announce- 
ment struck us as extraordinary. We stared incred- 
ulously. How often was this place visited? What 
custom could the caterers expect? Prompted partly 
by curiosity, and partly by the appetite which our 
outing had awakened, we ascended the track. The 
hill-side was musical with the notes of the bell- 
birds. Shy as the little creatures usually are, these 
were so tame that they allowed us to get quite close 
to them. As we approached the cottage that now 
appeared through the trees, a little old lady, as neatly 
attired as though she had been expecting visitors, 
came forward to meet us. She greeted us like an 
old familiar friend, and placed seats for us on the 
verandah. 

‘Now this is very fortunate,’ she exclaimed, rub- 
bing her hands; ‘I’ve been making some scones this 
very afternoon; come along and sit down!’ 

She sat with us for a few minutes, talking of 
everything under the sun. Then, excusing herself, 
she bustled off to get the tea. Whilst she prepared 
it, we strolled round her trim little garden. Every- 
thing was as neat and tidy as the little old lady her- 
self. Afternoon tea consisted of the hot scones, of 
which she was manifestly proud, some home-made 
cakes, and delicious tea served in quaint old china 
cups. [t was prepared on the verandah; provision 
was made for three; it was clear that the old lady 


The Lady of the Lake 123 


regarded herself as a member of our party. Nor was 
she the only addition to our number. For, as we 
drew near the cottage, we noticed a big wattlebird 
perched on the back of one of the chairs and helping 
herself to the sugar in the basin. We stood still and 
watched. To our surprise, the bird herself broke 
the silence. She lifted up her voice in a terrific 
‘squawk.’ We were astonished at her endangering 
her felicity by giving the alarm; but the explanation 
swiftly appeared. In answer to the call, a young 
bird fluttered down from a tall tree near by, and, 
with beak wide open, settled on the table just beside 
the sugar-basin. The mother bird then joined her 
offspring on the table, and, with incredible celerity, 
shovelled the sugar into the open mouth of the 
younger bird. The sugar was rapidly disappearing 
when the old lady appeared in the doorway. She 
clapped her hands and waved her apron to scare the 
birds away, and pretended to be horrified at our 
complicity in the theft. As we sat at tea we asked 
her why she stayed in that lonely place. 

‘Well,’ she said, ‘sometimes I’ve thought of leav- 
ing; but it’s the only home [I’ve ever had in this 
country, and I can’t bear to leave it now. And 
then,’ she added, after a pause, ‘did you not notice 
two graves on the hill-side?’ 

We remembered looking up at the two stones 
standing all by themselves among the scrub. 

‘I feel,’ she said, ‘that I cannot go away and leave 
them.’ 


124 The Crystal Pointers 


‘Well, this has been a great treat,’ she exclaimed, 
a quarter of an hour later, when we rose to take our 
departure. “There’s nothing in the world like a 
nice cup of tea and a heart-to-heart talk about 
things.’ 

‘Oh dear, no,’ she added, as I offered to pay her, 
‘it’s only once or twice in the year that anybody 
comes; and I couldn’t think of charging for it. I 
shall think about this for months to come? 

She insisted on accompanying us down the track 
to the boat, and, when we rowed round the point, 
she was still standing among the ferns waving good- 
bye. We have often spoken of it since, and in our 
conversation we always call her the Lady of the 
Lake. 

‘There’s nothing in the world like a nice cup of 
tea!’ I fancy I hear her saying it now. The Lady 
of the Lake reminds me of little Mother Mannikin in 
A Peep Behind the Scenes. Mother Mannikin, it 
will be remembered, was one of the queer little 
ladies from the caravan of dwarfs, and so soon as 
Rosalie’s poor mother was stricken with a sudden 
sickness, Rosalie flew from her own caravan to that 
in which the Royal Show of Dwarfs dwelt, and 
called for Mother Mannikin. 

Mother Mannikin had a cup of tea ready almost 
directly. She was the quickest little body Rosalie 
had ever seen; yet she was so quiet that her quick 
movements did not in the least disturb the sick 
woman. 


The Lady of the Lake 125 


‘How kind you are!’ said Rosalie’s mother, as the 
dwarf climbed on a chair to give her the tea. 
‘There’s nothing like tea!’ said the tiny old 
woman, nodding her wise little head, “give me a 
cup of tea, and I don’t care what I go without ? 
No, there’s nothing like tea! As a boy I thought 
of a cup of tea as so much liquid prophecy. | 
watched the kisses rising to the surface from the 
melting sugar, and I counted curiously the strangers 
that would soon be coming. And, later on, I learned 
that a cup of tea is not only liquid prophecy, but 
liquid history. If I turn to the East, 1 see the 
transformation that tea has brought. ‘It has changed 
the face of India, says Sir John Rees. “The 
abodes of savagery—the haunts of the dreaded head- 
hunters—have been transformed into graceful and 
picturesque plantations!’ And if I turn to the West, 
the evidence is no less striking. ‘Tea is the biggest 
thing in American history,’ declares Mr. N. H. Page, 
who was for some time the United States Ambas- 
sador in London. ‘And if,’ he says, ‘tea had crossed 
the Atlantic a few generations earlier, the whole 
course of world-history would have been revolu- 
tionized.’ A cup of tea is prophecy in solution: it is 
history in solution: it is everything in solution! 
The possibilities of tea are simply infinite. By 
means of tea, Charles Simeon changed the face of 
the world. For fifty-four years he gave a tea-party 
every Friday evening; he invited the undergradu- 
ates of Cambridge University to his table; and states- 


126 The Crystal Pointers 


men like Macaulay and Wilberforce and Sir James 
Stephen have told us that, by means of those tea- 
parties, Charles Simeon did more for the evangeli- 
zation of the world than any man of his generation. 
Fiundreds of men left that modest tea-table and 
went forth to dispel the darkness of continents, 
Old Doctor Samuel Johnson could have picked 
up the Lady of the Lake and little Mother Mannikin, 
and, slipping the one into one pocket and the other 
into the other, could have walked off with the pair 
of them. But the old doctor would have dealt very 
gently with them both, for their sentiments are very 
much to his taste. ‘I am a hardened and shameless 
tea-drinker,’ says the great man. ‘For twenty years 
{ have diluted my meals with nothing but the infu- 
sion of this fascinating plant. My kettle has scarcely 
time to cool. You may describe me as one who 
with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the 
midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.’ 
Now, this brings me into the atmosphere of con- 
troversy, and controversy I abhor. But one can see 
at a glance that this confession of Dr. Johnson’s was 
not made in cold blood. There is heat in it, for the 
doctor was angry. The truth is that Mr. Jonas 
Hanway had been writing essays on every subject 
under the sun—an extremely reprehensible practice 
—and had at last written an essay on Tea. Now 
there are few more interesting men in that old 
time than this same Mr. Jonas Hanway. He advo- 
cated the abolition of chimney-sweeps before Lord 


The Lady of the Lake 127 


Shaftesbury ; he shares with Robert Raikes the honor 
of having pioneered our Sunday Schools; and there 
was scarcely a philanthropic or charitable institution 
in England with which the name of Jonas Hanway 
was not associated. Not the least among his good 
works was his popularization of the umbrella. Until 
then, when the rain came, a man jumped into a 
hackney coach; and the cabmen thought that good 
Master Hanway had ruined their trade when he set 
the new fashion. But when the reformer, with all 
the zeal of a modern temperance advocate, hurled his 
thunderbolts among the tea-cups, he brought upon 
his innocent old head the wrath of Oliver Goldsmith, 
Samuel Johnson, and a host of others. Mr. Han- 
way wrote an angry answer to Johnson’s review; 
and Johnson, after a full and deliberate pause, fired 
a second shot. Boswell says that it is the only 
instance in the whole course of his life in which the 
doctor condescended to notice anything that was 
written against him. But Mr. Hanway had touched 
the doctor on a very tender spot. Nobody, as Bos- 
well remarks, was ever more fond of the infusion of 
the fragrant leaf than he was. He drank it immod- 
erately, and, by setting the fashion, assured the tri- 
umph of the tea-pot. 

Poor old Jonas Hanway is dead; but he, being 
dead, yet speaketh. And poor old Samuel Johnson 
is dead; and he, being dead, yet speaketh. And, still 
speaking, they both talk about tea. The clash of 
their wordy warfare even invades the churches. 


128 The Crystal Pointers 


Jonas Hanway, dead but still speaking, pours out 
the vials of his withering scorn and contempt on our 
ecclesiastical tea-drinking. ‘In the old time,’ he 
says, “Ezekiel saw rivers of water rushing out from 
beneath the temple; if he looked to-day he would 
see rivers of tea. Fie upon you! It is whispered 
that next month the Church will celebrate another 
anniversary of her testimony, and a general rush 
takes place for the tea-pot. The Sunday School 
has completed another year of service among the 
young; where’s the tea-pot? The minister sends in 
his resignation; get out the tea-pot! NHere comes 
the new minister; is the tea-pot ready? A member 
of the choir is about to be married; hurry out the 
tea-pot! A fresh teacher has been appointed to take 
charge of the Bible Class; where do you keep the 
tea-pot! The reading circle has finished with 
Dickens and is about to start on Tennyson; is there 
any tea in the tea-pot? One of the members of the 
Guild is just off for a trip; run to the cupboard for 
the tea-pot! Poor, overworked tea-pot! If some 
of you toiled half as hard as the tea-pot, what a 
Church your Church would be! ‘Fie upon you, fie 
upon you,’ cries old Master Hanway, excitedly flour- 
ishing his huge umbrella the while, ‘fie upon you for 
a generation of guzzlers and tea-bibbers !’ 

_ But when the old gentleman begins to talk like 
this in our courts and assemblies, he always brings 
Dr. Johnson to his feet. It is more than he can 
endure. ‘Sir! the doctor thunders, ‘do you not 


The Lady of the Lake 129 


recognize that religion has its social side! Have 
you never read that of olden time men saw God and 
did eat and drink? Are you not aware that religious 
service consists in common friendship and mutual 
helpfulness? Can you not see, Sir, that, to minister 
effectively to each other, men must know each other? 
Would you have the members of your congregation 
to come silently in, and to steal silently out, aloof, 
distant, remote—isolated units, strangers to each 
other? Is that your idea? A rope of sand, Sir!’ 
the doctor roars, bringing his huge hand down on 
the table with a terrific bang. ‘A rope of sand, I 
tell you! No, Sir, bring out the tea-pot! Get them 
together! Let them eat together and drink together! 
Let them chatter and gossip and talk! Yes, Sir, let 
them talk! And what will make them talk like tea, 
Sir? Tell me that—what will unloose their tongues 
like a good cup of steaming, fragrant tea? Be thank- 
ful for tea, I tell you, and the more you use your tea- 
pot the better!’ And the doctor resumes his seat 
with a glance of withering scorn at his ancient 
enemy. 

In this furious controversy my sympathies are 
entirely with Dr. Johnson—and Mr. Hanway! They 
are, as is usual in such wordy warfares, both right. 
We must, of course, develop the social side of folk. 
Christian friendship is one of the sweetest and most 
precious things under God’s great stars. And any- 
thing that can be done to create and foster it, it 
is obviously our duty to do. And yet, for all that, 


130 The Crystal Pointers 


vv 


I own to a sneaking sympathy with Mr. Hanway. 
We must not trust the tea-pot too implicitly. It has 
its dangers. The social side of church life is not 
the highest. It is good, but it is not the best; and 
the good is often the enemy of the best. Second 
things have an awkward knack of usurping the place 
of first things. And if the Church allows the tea- 
pot to dominate the situation, her prestige has been 
sacrificed and the glory has departed. 

In the Clerical Life, there appears a letter from 
a distracted young minister, who finds that after- 
noon tea is becoming the menace of his ministry. 
‘My list for next week,’ he says, ‘is longer than 
ever. On Monday I have promised to take tea 
with old Mrs. Ledwell, to celebrate the news of her 
son’s safety in the war. On Tuesday, Miss Bell- 
hurst hopes I will look in for half-an-hour, as it is 
her fifty-seventh birthday, and she feels lonely with 
none of her relatives near her. Mrs. Lapham 
reminded me this evening that Wednesday was her 
quarterly tea-drinking for the girls of her Bible 
Class. On Thursday, Mrs. Brock hopes I will spare 
time to take tea at her boarding-house, as she spe- 
cially wishes to introduce to me a young gentleman 
of wonderful artistic talent.’ And so on. Now, 
what’s to be done? Shall our perplexed young min- 
ister visit the poor and the sick and the dying, go 
to the hospitals and attend the committees? or shall 
he sip the tea that these ladies are preparing for his 
delectation? He confesses in his letter to an uncom- 


ee 


The Lady of the Lake 131 


fortable feeling that, if he does his duty, the church 
attendance of Mrs. Ledwell and Miss Bellhurst, Mrs. 
Lapham and Mrs. Brock will suffer in consequence. 
It is an awful pity, for they are very nice ladies, 
and they really mean well. Let us talk it all over. 
Even Mr. Hanway will join our little tea party on 
this occasion, and we will ask the Lady of the Lake 
to pour out. 

You are quite right, little Lady of the Lake, a 
cup of tea on that hill-side verandah of yours is 
very, very nice! 

You are quite right, Mother Mannikin, there 1s 
nothing like tea, nothing like tea! 

You are quite right, Mr. Hanway, the tea-pot 
has grave perils! 

You are quite right, Dr. Johnson, the tea-pot has 
great possibilities. 

You are most kind, ladies all, and your tea parties 
are most pleasant! 

Your conscience speaks truly, poor distracted 
young minister; you must do your duty, come what 
may ! 

‘Thank God for the tea-pot! says Dr. Johnson, 
pouring himself out another cup whilst the Lady 
of the Lake has for a moment turned her back, 
‘thank God for the tea-pot. 

‘Amen!’ say I. 

‘Beware of the tea-pot! says old Jonas Hanway, 
returning his scarcely tasted cup to the table, to 
the evident sorrow of the Lady of the Lake, towards 


132 The Crystal Pointers 


whom little Mother Mannikin benevolently directs a 
glance of affectionate sympathy. ‘Beware of the 
tea-pot!’ he murmurs. 

And once more I say ‘Amen!’ 


SS ee 


IV 
ALL FOOLS’ DAY 


Ir is the first of April. I will not explain how 
I made the discovery except to mention casually 
that we keep a boy in the house. But, now that 
the theme has been brought so pointedly under my 
notice, I may as well pursue it. There are fools 
and fools. Wise men will therefore show their wis- 
dom by discriminating. ‘Nothing is more charactet- 
istic of a man,’ Amiel declares, ‘than the manner in 
which he behaves towards fools.’ That being so, 
it is obvious that our own commentators and pul- 
piteers have a lot to answer for. The Bible intro- 
duces us to certain fools; and, the moment that the 
Bible aims that opprobrious epithet at one of its 
characters, every preacher and expositor reaches for 
a stone to hurl at him. From innumerable painful 
instances of this kind of thing, let me, almost at 
random, select one. The Bible speaks of the fool 
who says in his heart that there is no God. Now 
turn to the commentators; and, of commentators, 
Mr. Spurgeon thought John Trapp the prince. 
‘Would it be possible,’ Mr. Spurgeon asks, ‘to eulo- 
gize too much the incomparably sententious and suge 
gestive folios of John Trapp? Trapp is my espe- 


133 


134 The Crystal Pointers 


cial companion and treasure; Trapp is salt, pepper, 
mustard, vinegar and all the other condiments; I 
can read him when I am too weary for anything 
else.’ In my student days I had a five-pound note 
given me. On the strength of Mr. Spurgeon’s elo- 
quent encomiums, I straightway bought John Trapp. 
I have sometimes thought a little wistfully of that 
bank-note. But, to make up, in some measure, for 
lost time, I turn to Trapp to-day. And, as soon as 
John Trapp comes in sight of the man who says in 
his heart ‘There is no God,’ he immediately exhausts 
all his powers of vituperation and abuse. ‘Oh, hor- 
rible! he exclaims. ‘To say in his heart “There is 
no God!” That fool! That sapless fellow! That 
carcase of aman! That walking sepulchre of him- 
self, in whom all religion and right reason is with- 
ered and wasted, dried up and decayed! That apos- 
tate, in whom natural principles are extinct and from 
whom God is departed! That mere animal! That 
atheist!’ And so on. I am pillorying poor John 
Trapp out of pure malice—malice born of regret 
for my lost bank-note. I do not know that he is 
worse than other commentators. Mr. Spurgeon says 
that, of all commentators, he is the best; and I have 
proved, in a practical way, my willingness to accept 
Mr. Spurgeon’s dictum. I quote this savage out- 
burst of his as typical of the tendency against which 
I this day raise my voice in protest. It by no means 
follows, because the Bible calls a man a fool, that 
{ am entitled to do so. People who live in glass 


All Fools’ Day 135 


houses must not throw stones. I need not elaborate 
that point. 7 

I propose in this chapter to introduce three fools. 
David’s fool—the fool who said in his heart that 
there is no God, the fool who awoke Master John 
Trapp’s terrific outburst—will be one of them. I 
shall endeavor to show that he is the least foolish 
of the three. My three fools are the Fool Positive, 
the Fool Comparative and the Fool Superlative. 


I 


David’s fool is the Fool Positive. He is a thought- 
ful fool, this fool; he thinks about God. And, 
in days when thoughtlessness is fairly common, 
no man who seriously thinks is to be altogether 
despised. He may think wrongly; but a man 1s 
better to think wrongly than not to think at all. He 
may reach a false conclusion; but a man is better to 
reach a false conclusion than to reach none. 

This first fool is to be commended for his honesty. 
He says what he really thinks. He says in lis heart 
‘There is no God.’ Very few of us make our out- 
ward profession an exact reflection of our inward 
faith. We subscribe to creeds or confessions that are 
a size too big or a size too small for us. We some- 
times minimize and sometimes magnify our doubts. 
This man recognizes that honesty should never be 
compromised for the sake of conformity. He really 
believes that there is no God; and he is too good a 
man to say that there is. Lord Morley argues that 


136 The Crystal Pointers 


there are few temptations greater than the tempta- 
tion to gratify those whom we esteem by confessing 
a faith that we do not really hold. Husbands, espe- 
cially, he thinks, are beset by this peril. Without 
intending to be insincere, they are tempted to con- 
fess the faith that their wives cherish. The posi- 
tion is brought about, Lord Morley maintains, very 
gradually. ‘Marriages are often made early in life, 
before either man or woman has come to feel very 
deeply about religion either one way or another. 
The woman does not know how much she will need 
religion nor what comfort it may bring to her. The 
man does not know all the objections to it which 
may disclose themselves to his understanding as the 
years ripen.’ As the time goes on, her filmy faith 
crystallizes into strong conviction and earnest devo- 
tion; he is shattered by the shocks and assaults to 
which it is every day exposed. But, rather than grieve 
her gentle spirit by confessing his unbelief, he con- 
tinues to kneel at her side and to repeat prayers that, 
to him, are the hollowest of mockeries. Lord Mor- 
ley maintains that, however pure and admirable the 
motive, the sin is a great and bitter one. It is a sin 
against his own soul, and a sin against hers. In 
relation to himself, it is a constant blasphemy; in 
relation to her, it is a constant deception. David’s 
fool would have nothing to do with it. He said 
exactly what he felt. 

He said it in the best possible place. He said it, 
not in the forum, nor even at the fireside, but in his 


: 
7 
4 





All Fools’ Day 137 


heart. As a wise fool, he recognized that that is 
essentially the place for the utterance of negations. 
Any man may be positive about a positive; but no 
man can be positive about a negative. Fifty 
expeditions may set out to search for a ship that is 
supposed to be drifting upon the high seas and may 
return without having caught a glimpse of her. No 
one of them can report with any confidence that the 
missing vessel is not there. But, if one man actually 
sights her, he is justified in affirming with the utmost 
confidence that she 1s. 

No man ever yet helped the world by publishing 
a negation. Iconoclasm is the policy of despair. 
The hunger of the human heart can never be satis- 
fied with denials. Stephen Grellet, the adventurous 
Quaker who took the world as his parish, came, in 
the course of his travels, upon Thomas Paine, the 
celebrated sceptic. Paine was dying, neglected and 
forsaken; and Stephen Grellet pitied him. He men- 
tioned the case to other Quakers; and these good, 
quiet people vied with each other in showing kind- 
ness to the dying infidel. Among others, a young 
Quaker lady, Mary Roscoe, visited him constantly, 
taking with her dainties calculated to tempt the 
invalid’s palate. One afternoon, Mr. Paine asked 
her if she had ever read any of his writings. She 
answered that she had read very little of them. 
He asked what she thought of them. ‘From such 
as you,’ he added, ‘I expect a perfectly true answer.’ 
She told him that, when she was quite a girl, his 


138 The Crystal Pointers 


Age of Reason was put into her hands: she told him 
that, the more she read it, the more dark and dis- 
tressed her mind became; and she told him that she 
ended by flinging the volume on to the fire. The 
dying man looked half-pained and half-relieved. 
‘Oh, how I wish,’ he moaned, ‘that all had done as 
you did!’ How he wished that, like David’s fool, 
he had confided his negations to his own heart, and 
to his own heart only! There was method in the 
madness of the man who said in his heart ‘There is 
no God.’ 

Lhe Fool Positive expresses his dark negation in 
accents suited to its sadness. Beggars have told me 
of their penniless condition; but they never say it 
boisterously. Invalids have told me of their shat- 
tered health; but they never tell the story in gleeful 
tones. ‘he man who has lost the sweet and beautiful 
faith of his childhood, the faith that his father and 
his mother cherished, will never speak flippantly of 
his loss. He will say in his heart ‘There is no God’ ; 
but he will say it with a great lump in his throat, 
with moisture in his eyes, and with a great sob in 
the depths of his soul. 


II 


The Fool Comparative is Bunyan’s fool, His 
name is Atheist; and, though obviously modelled 
on David’s fool, he is incomparably the greater fool 
of the two. 

fis temper is the temper of a fool. ‘Now after 


a oe oe 


All Fools’ Day 139 


awhile the pilgrims perceived, afar off, one coming 
softly and alone, along the highway, to meet them. 
Then said Christian to Hopeful, “Yonder is a man 
with his back toward Zion, and he is coming to meet 
us.” When Atheist drew nearer, he asked them 
whither they were going. And, when Christian told 
him that they were going to Mount Zion, he fell into 
a very great laughter.’ It is a laugh that sends a 
shudder down your spine. ‘How much lies in 
laughter!’ exclaims Carlyle. ‘It is the cipher-key 
wherewith we interpret the whole man.’ And 
Goethe used to say that a man reveals his character 
most clearly in the things that he considers laugh- 
able. And this man laughs over his lost faith! He 
laughs at his own disillusionment! He laughs at the 
trustfulness that he sees in the souls of others! 
There was no laughter in the heart of David’s fool— 
the Fool Positive. The man who voices his atheism 
to the accompaniment of a giggle has reached a point 
to which salvation seldom comes. 

His behavior is the behavior of a fool. ‘I laugh,’ 
he says, ‘to see what ignorant persons you are, to 
take upon you so tedious a journey. I have been 
seeking this city these twenty years.’ And, after 
twenty years’ pilgrimage, he turns back! Men often 
give up at the very stage at which, most of all, they 
should keep on. The Burke and Wills expedition 
perished miserably in the dusty heart of Australia 
through turning back when almost within sight of 
the sheep-station at Mount Hopeless. Their camels 


140 The Crystal Pointers 


were all dead; their food supply was exhausted: ; they 
were themselves mere skeletons staggering grimly 
across burning sands. They knew that at Mount 
Hopeless, if only they could reach it, every comfort 
awaited them. And, within a few miles of it, their 
hearts failed them! They feared that they had lost 
their way and were simply wandering out into the 
desert to die. Back at Cooper’s Creek there was, 
at any rate, abundance of water. They turned back 
——and perished! This man in Bunyan’s vivid pages 
found the journey ‘tedious,’ so he turned back, 
became a menace and an affront to every pilgrim 
that he met, and laughed derisively at his earlier 
zeal, 

flis reasoning is the reasoning of a fool. When 
they spoke of the city towards which they pressed, 
he laughed and laughed again.. ‘There is no such 
place,’ he cried, ‘as that you dream of!’ How did 
he know? He had not been to the end of the road! 
It was a pure assumption, the grossest guess-work! 
On strictly intellectual grounds, the pilgrims had 
far more right to laugh at him than he at them. 
‘The assertion that outstrips the evidence,’ exclaimed 
Huxley, the prince of our agnostics, on a famous 
occasion, ‘the assertion that outstrips the evidence 
is not only a blunder but a crime.’ By that fine 
sentence Huxley brands Bunyan’s Atheist as both 
a blunderer and a criminal. 

Flis secret is the secret of a fool. ‘I am going 
back,’ he said, ‘and will seek to refresh myself with 





All Fools’ Day IAL 


the things that I cast away, for that which I see is 
not.’ It is an old story. ‘We remember the fish,’ 
cried the children of Israel, at an advanced stage 
of their journey across the wilderness, ‘we remem- 
ber the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely; 
cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the 
onions and the garlick; but now our soul is dried 
away; there is nothing at all except this manna before 
our eyes.” Nomelons: only miracles! It is wonder- 
ful how long the soul retains its craving for the tasty 
things it has forsaken. Distance lends enchantment 
to the view. After being fed for years on angels’ 
food, we invest the memory of onions and garlick 
with a delicacy that we never discovered in them 
when we ate them every day. After twenty years 
of pilgrimage, Atheist sees a strange sweetness in the 
trifles that he forsook with a light heart. For the 
sake of the melons he says good-bye to the miracles! 
His hankering for the fleshpots of Egypt conquers 
his faith in the Promised Land. A man may easily 
follow his inclination and persuade himself that he 
follows the gleam. 


III 


David’s fool is the Fool Positive; Bunyan’s is the 
Fool Comparative. The Fool Superlative is the man 
who, convinced by the dictates of his reason, of his 
conscience, and of his heart that there is a God who 
made him and a Saviour who died for him, lives 
every day of his life as though there were neither. 


V 
BUNCH 


I 


Wuat about Bunch? that was the question. Bunch, 
I need scarcely explain, was the cat. He was so 
called, not because of any deformity or ungainli- 
ness—he was really a very shapely and attractive 
cat—but because he came to us, a tiny black kitten, 
at the identical moment at which I was putting the 
finishing touches to the manuscript of A Bunch of 
Everlastings. The work lay complete upon the desk. 
The last ‘i’ had just been dotted, and the last ‘t’ 
crossed, when the study door flew open, and the 
quiet room was swept by a tornado of boisterous 
excitement. 

‘Look what Harry Townley has given us,’ they 
all cried in chorus, ‘he’s got four of them, and he 
says we may have this one.’ 

As they bounded off to show their treasure to 
other admirers, the mistress of the manse remained 
for a moment beside my desk, and glanced over the 
finished manuscript. 

‘We'll call him Bunch,’ she said, laughingly, 
‘because he came to-day.’ And so it was ordained. 

But, at the moment of which I am about to write, 


142 


ee a 





Bunch 143 


a new difficulty had arisen. We were leaving home 
for our annual holiday at Wedge Bay. The children 
had talked of nothing else for weeks past. Three 
more Sundays: two more Sundays: one more Sun- 
day! Three more days: two more days: one more 
day! And now the appointed date had actually 
arrived. Everything was in a flutter of excitement. 
The final instructions had been given: the last dis- 
positions had been made: the cab had been ordered. 
Only one question remained to be settled. What 
about Bunch? Bunch, sublimely unaware of the 
loneliness awaiting him, came purring round our 
feet as we moved among the dress-baskets, suit- 
cases, and portmanteaux. What about Bunch? The 
younger children were for taking him; it had never 
occurred to them that we might heartlessly contem- 
plate the desertion of so essential a member of the 
household; and there were signs of tears when our 
fell purpose stood exposed. Why was everybody 
else to go and Bunch to be left behind? A kindly 
neighbor, however, soothed their anguish and dis- 
missed their fears. Mrs. Tyrrell was a little old 
lady who lived by herself in a cottage a few yards 
away. 

‘Bunch will be all right,’ she said, assuringly. 
‘He often comes to my back door to see if I have 
anything for him. I will keep a saucer of milk 
always ready when he calls, and he will be as happy 
here as you will be at Wedge Bay. Don’t worry 
about him!’ 


144 The Crystal Pointers 


Thus comforted, the sunshine came back to the 
children’s faces. The clouds returned for just a 
moment when, on the arrival of the cab, they bade 
poor Bunch an affectionate but confident good-bye. 
That, however, was the last of their grief. As soon 
as the cab turned the corner and the house was out 
of sight, they abandoned themselves to the thrills of 
the journey. The drive to the wharf and the 
voyage to Wedge Bay occupied all their thoughts, 
and, with light hearts, they resigned Bunch to the 
tender mercies of a next-door neighbor. Thus closes 
the first chapter of my narrative: I wish the second 
could read as pleasantly. 


II 


“Here’s Bunch?’ 

It was the day of our return, and the cab had 
scarcely left the door. During the holiday, Bunch 
had come in for frequent mention. The sight of a 
cat, of whatever kind or color, had led to instant 
speculation as to Bunch’s well-being. ‘I wonder 
how Bunch is getting on?’ ‘I wonder if he misses 
us?’ ‘I wonder if he’ll know us when we go back?’ 
‘I hope Mrs. Tyrrell is giving him plenty of milk! 
And so on. When letters arrived from Hobart, we 
were immediately asked whether there was any news 
of Bunch. And now the holiday was a thing of the 
past, and we were home again! Little Mrs. Tyrrell 
came to her gate as soon as she heard the rattle of 
wheels. 





Bunch T45 


‘Oh, yes,’ she said, smilingly, in reply to the first 
enquiries, “Bunch is quite well: he was here a few 
minutes ago. We have grown very fond of each 
other, Bunch and I; and I wish that he could come 
and live with me always.’ 

The avowal was, perhaps, scarcely tactful, and the 
children looked as though they had scented a new 
danger. Had Mrs. Tyrrell used her position to win 
Bunch’s heart away from them? Suppose Bunch 
didn’t want to come home, but wanted to stay with 
Mrs. Tyrrell always and be Mrs. Tyrrell’s cat! The 
children left Mrs. Tyrrell without any expressions 
of gratitude, and went bounding up the path to the 
garden in search of Bunch. 

‘Here’s Bunch! cried Stella, running excitedly 
towards us with the cat struggling in her arms; and, 
even as she spoke, it lifted a claw and inflicted on 
her face a scratch which extended from the fore- 
head to the chin. She dropped him instantly, and 
it was clear that her pain was not solely, or even 
chiefly, physical. She was heart-broken to think that 
her former pet could treat her so savagely. We 
warned them to leave him alone until he had once 
more grown accustomed to us all; but the temptation 
was too strong; one by one they each ventured, and 
came back wincing with the smart of their scratches. 
After an hour or two, we carried him into the house; 
but his behavior there was as strange and unseemly 
as it had been in the garden. He tore from room 
to room like some wild creature. He rushed madly 


146 The Crystal Pointers 


up the passages, hid in dark corners, and skulked 
behind curtains and cupboards. He would have 
nothing to do with us. At the very first opportunity 
he bounded out at the back door and made his way 
straight to Mrs. Tyrrell’s cottage. When I looked 
in on her an hour or two later to tell her about it, 
he was curled up on the rug at her feet, purring 
as innocently and contentedly as though he had no 
scratched children on his conscience. 

We were astounded. I had heard that, under the 
influence of changed conditions, cats sometimes dis- 
play a kind of moral deterioration. Mr. Jerome K. 
Jerome has a story of a cat named Thomas Henry. 
He came from the Reform Club, and, for years, the 
atmosphere of solid dignity and petrified conserv- 
atism which distinguish the Club seemed to cling to 
that cat. He was a most respectable cat; a most 
gentlemanly cat; he was a shining example to all the 
cats in the neighborhood. After dinner, we are 
told, he invariably took half-an-hour’s constitu- 
tional in the square. At ten o'clock each night 
precisely he returned to the area door, and at eleven 
o’clock he was asleep in his master’s easy chair. He 
made no friends among other cats, and took no 
pleasure in fighting. His existence was blameless. 
But, alas, conditions changed. The family went to 
live in the country; and in the country Thomas 
Henry lost all his virtuous habits and developed as 
many vicious ones. Mr. Jerome concludes his 
recital by telling of the tragedy that put an end to 


Bunch 147 


Thomas Henry’s life. ‘Poor Thomas Henry!’ he 
muses. ‘It shows one how a reputation for respec- 
tability may lie in‘the mere absence of temptation. 
Born and bred in the atmosphere of the Reform 
Club, what gentleman could go wrong? I was sorry 
for Thomas Henry, and I have never believed in 
the moral influence of the country since.’ In Bunch’s 
case, however, there was no such change of environ- 
ment. It was we who had changed our surround- 
ings: fis had remained practically the same. His 
collapse seemed inexplicable and unpardonable. The 
children went to bed that night—the first night after 
their return—with heavy hearts. To a child there 
is always a poignant sadness about the loss of any- 
thing; but the loss of faith is the saddest loss of 
all. They could have borne the smart of their 
scratches: but to have lost faith in Bunch! 


III 


Next morning a strange thing happened. I was 
sitting at my desk, with the window wide open 
beside me, when up on to the window-sill jumped 
Bunch! I looked at him more in sorrow than in 
anger: I scrutinized his bearing in the hope of 
detecting some evidence of penitence: but he seemed 
entirely oblivious of any cause of offence. He was 
the same old Bunch—neither savage nor sorry. It 
was Clear that, whatever his feelings had been over- 
night, his attitude this morning was altogether 


148 The Crystal Pointers 


friendly. He sprang into the room, purred round 
my feet, and made every demonstration of delighted 
affection. I was puzzled, and, opening the door, 
summoned the other members of the household. 
They approached him cautiously, their scratches 
being still inflamed, but his behavior quickly ban- 
ished their distrust. He received their caresses with 
manifest pleasure, made himself perfectly at home 
with them, and generally behaved as we had expected 
him to behave the day before. The thing was a 
mystery. I remembered hearing that cats are sub- 
ject to strange fits and seizures: was it possible that, 
perhaps owing to the excitement of the children’s 
home-coming, something of the kind had overtaken 
him? Glancing through the window, I saw Mrs. 
Tyrrell gathering some wallflowers in her garden. 
I called out to her. 

‘Good morning, Mrs. Tyrrell,’ I said. “Bunch 
is all right this morning, and the children are very 
excited about it. They are playing with him on the 
verandah now.’ 

‘Not now,’ she replied, smilingly, ‘for here he is 
at my feet’; and she stooped and lifted him. 1 
excused myself, and hurried to the verandah. Bunch 
was still the centre of attraction there. I told Mrs. 
Tyrrell so. She laughed, picked up the cat at her 
feet, and brought him round. There were the two 
black cats within a few feet of each other, exactly 
of a size, and as much alike as two peas! We all 
had a good laugh over it. 


Bunch 149 


‘I come off best,’ said Mrs. Tyrrell, ‘for I thought 
that I had grown fond of a cat that could never 
belong to me, and that I ought no longer to encour- 
age about the place; and, as it turns out, I can take 
him back with me and have him for my very, very 
own. It shows that you can never go wrong by 
showing a little kindness to anything.’ 

‘Yes,’ replied the mistress of the manse, ‘and it 
shows how careful we should be in our judgments. 
Here we all went to bed last night sad at heart 
because we thought that Bunch had proved fickle 
and faithless, and Bunch was true to us all the time. 
There is so often a satisfactory explanation of such 
things if only we have the grace to wait for it! 

Followed by her favorite, Mrs. Tyrrell returned 
to her wallflowers, and I went back to the study. 


IV 


Bunch, I grieve to say, has gone the way of all 
his kind. One Sunday afternoon, at midsummer, 
as we sat on the lawn taking afternoon tea, it 
occurred to us that Bunch, lying in a shady corner, 
did not seem quite himself. Presently, however, he 
rose; took a stroll round the lawn; had a good look 
at each of us; and then returned to his corner, 
stretched himself out, and was dead! We often 
speak of him. Whenever the conversation turns 
upon events that are capable of hasty conclusions 
and harsh judgments, we seem to see him curled up 


150 The Crystal Pointers 


on the mat at our feet. The memory of him is a 
constant reminder that appearances are often illusive. 
His eyes—as we recall his familiar form—are always 
full of quiet rebuke. He seems to be incessantly 
pleading for a little patience and a larger charity. 


VEG 
THE RISKY ROAD 


WE are born plungers. We like to speculate. We 
love life all the better because it is something of a 
lottery. The risky road is a well-worn one; it is 
only the safe path on which the grass is always 
growing. We are never so happy as when we are 
taking tremendous hazards. I was passing a school 
yesterday afternoon just as the children were pour- 
ing out of the lobbies at the end of their day’s work. 
One boy wished to cross the road and could have 
done it, had he so desired, in perfect safety. But in 
the distance he saw a motor-car approaching at top 
speed. The temptation was too great. He waited 
on the curbstone until the car was almost opposite 
him, and then dashed across the road just in front 
of it. For a fraction of a second he must have 
been within a few inches of the front of the car. 
Another boy was walking home along the top of 
a narrow wall! The pavement was by no means 
crowded ; but then, there was no chance of breaking 
his neck on the pavement! A few minutes later I 
saw a young fellow jump off a moving tram as it 
approached its stopping-place at the end of his street. 
He had to walk on to the point at which it stopped, 


ISI 


152 The Crystal Pointers 


so that he only risked his life and limbs for the pure 
joy of it! In the same way I have seen boys creep- 
ing to the very edge of a precipice, clambering up 
the most dangerous ascents, and bathing at those 
spots at which the current is most treacherous. As 
a little lad, David Livingstone used to look long- 
ingly up at the crumbling ruins of Bothwell Castle, 
and was never happy until he had climbed to the 
highest point and carved his name on the topmost 
stone. But I need not multiply instances. We are 
all tarred with the same brush. We like to get as 
near as possible to the danger-zone. The man who, 
travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho, took ‘the 
bloody way,’ infested by robbers as he knew it to 
be, is the representative and father of us all. We 
delight in danger. And, although we sagely counsel 
others to take the path of safety, we love them all 
the better when they spurn our wisdom and stride 
off down the risky road. 

Now of risks there are two distinct kinds. There 
are the risks that we run for the sake of the profit 
that we expect to make—a mere throwing of the 
sprat in the hope of catching a mackerel; and there 
are the risks that we run, as the schoolboys run 
theirs, for the sheer fun of the thing. A gambler 
takes risks, but he takes them calculatingly, and 
after carefully weighing all the chances ranged 
against them. A merchant takes risks, but he will 
not hazard a thousand pounds on the chance of 
gaining a thousand pence. A miner takes risks, but 


The Risky Road 153 


he expects the jeopardy of his position to be con- 
sidered in assessing the measure of his remunera- 
tion. A military leader must at times involve himself 
in the most appalling hazards. Some of the most 
brilliant and most fruitful exploits in our history 
have been achieved by men who did not hesitate to 
take stupendous risks. ‘Here goes!’ cried Nelson, 
as he committed himself to the policy that led him 
to Trafalgar; ‘if I succeed, I shall have a statue in 
Westminster Abbey; if I fail, I shall be burned in 
effigy on every village green! It is by the taking 
of such risks that fortunes are made and wars are 
won and empires are built. These are the risks of 
the first class. 

But there is another class and a more attractive 
one. The boy who ran in front of the motor-car 
was not throwing a sprat to catch a mackerel. He 
courted the risk, as a lover courts his lady, for its 
own sake. Nor is this one of those boyish pranks 
that we discard with the advent of maturer years. 
A full-grown man, weighted with all the gravity of 
sage experience and large responsibilities, will often 
hazard his life in a desperate attempt to board a 
train that he does not need tocatch. ‘This morning,’ 
said Stewart Baker, as he sat by my fireside the 
other night, ‘this morning I set out for the city five 
minutes earlier than I really needed to have done. 
I vowed most solemnly that nothing should induce 
me to hurry for a tram. They run every three 
minutes; if I missed one, what did it matter? I 


154 The Crystal Pointers 


assumed a leisurely gait and walked quietly down 
the street. As I neared the main thoroughfare, how- 
ever, I heard the rumble of the coming tram. I 
reminded myself of my resolve, and, for half a 
dozen steps, I contrived to maintain my easy pace. 
But the rumble grew louder; I began to run in spite 
of myself; there is no stopping-place at the end of 
our street; and, by a short dash and a clever leap, 
I managed to procure a precarious foothold on the 
moving vehicle as the wretched thing whizzed by. 
I have had this experience scores of times; never 
once have I been able calmly to miss the tram.’ And 
Harold Fortescue tells of an old gentleman who, 
in hurrying to catch a train, became conscious of a 
severe palpitation. He consulted his doctor, who 
made him promise under no circumstances to hurry 
again. He died suddenly the next morning, close 
to the railway station, in running to catch the very 
same train! He had not the slightest need to catch 
it; others were following in quick succession; but 
the fascination of the risk was too great. Any- 
body who has ever spent half an hour in watching 
the tides of traffic surging into a city in the morning, 
and streaming out of it at night, must have been 
astonished at the risks that people will run in order 
to catch vehicles that they could easily afford to 
miss. 

The passion is in our very blood. We yield to it 
unconsciously, involuntarily, mechanically. And no 
wonder! For we have been at it for thousands of 


| 
: 
. 





The Risky Road To. 


years. The greatest risks that I ever ran were those 
that I encountered before I was born. Every dis- 
cerning pilgrim must have noticed that, of all the 
long road that he has had to travel, the worst and 
most ticklish bit was safely passed by the time that 
his birth became an actual fact. I am well on the 
way whenI am born. When I reflect on all the loves 
and the hates, the births and the deaths, the com- 
edies and the tragedies, that had to take place through 
the long agony of the ages in order to produce 
me, I am astounded that I did not lose my way 
along that difficult and tremendous stretch of the 
road. When I think of what might have hap- 
pened if some old forbear of mine, away back in 
the age of the cave-men, had taken it into his head © 
to marry the woman whom he murdered, or to 
murder the woman whom he married, it seems to 
me a perfect miracle that I got here. When I read 
of the barbarous ages of slaughter and carnage and 
brutality through which my long line of ancestors 
threads its fearsome way, it is perfectly astounding 
to me that not one of them got stabbed or clubbed 
or shot until they had duly taken their places in 
that long genealogical list. When I think of the 
wars and famines and pestilences through which 
those forbears of mine came unscathed, I catch my 
breath. Mark Rutherford has a striking passage 
in which he speaks of the temerity of a laborer who 
marries and has children when there is nothing 
but his own strength between him and ruin. ‘A 


156 The Crystal Pointers 


million chances are encountered every day, and any 
one of the million accidents which might happen 
would cripple him or kill him. Yet he treads his 
path undisturbed.’ But the risks that I run on this 
side of birth are nothing to the risks that I ran 
on that side of it. I seem to have -at least some 
measure of control over these contingencies. I was 
absolutely helpless to guard against those calamities. 
So there I was, making my way for thousands of 
years amidst the most appalling dangers! Every day 
I had to take risks that might freeze the blood 
of the hardiest adventurer. This sort of thing gen- 
erates a certain temper. The man who has spent 
twenty years in the wilds of Central Africa can 
scarcely tolerate the tameness of an English village. 
He longs to see an enraged elephant come bellowing 
out of the churchyard, or a hippopotamus standing 
among the alders on the banks of the trout-stream, 
or a lion crouching behind the elms at the corner 
of the green. Is it any wonder, then, that, since 
each of us has been journeying for countless 
centuries along a path beset by the most fearful 
perils, we feel an insatiable fondness for running 
risks? 

Happily, we have landed on a planet that is 
very much to our liking. There are risks every- 
where. They peep out at us from behind all the 
palings; they pounce down upon us from the lamp- 
posts, the tree-tops, and the overhanging eaves; they 
lurk behind the chairs, crouch under the table, and 





The Risky Road 157 


hide beneath the bed. They swarm about us like 
gnats at twilight. There are risks in everything. It 
is risky to eat: | may be poisoned. It is risky to 
walk down the street: I may contract infection or 
meet with accident. It is risky to buy or sell or 
exchange: I may be defrauded or cheated or de- 
ceived. In the passage that I have just cited, Mark 
Rutherford declares that the laborer takes a mil- 
lion chances a day. Personally I have never taken 
the trouble to count them, but I am prepared to 
accept his figures as authentic. 

We began early. We took a tremendous risk on 
the first day of our lives. Birth itself is a stupen- 
dous venture. Mr. Chesterton says that the best 
way in which a man could test his readiness to 
encounter the common variety of mankind would be 
to climb down a chimney into any house at random 
and get on as well as possible with the people inside. 
‘And that,’ he adds, ‘is essentially what each of us 
did on the day on which he was born.’ Moreover, 
we took that terrible leap with our eyes shut. We 
did not pause to enquire whether the chimney that 
we were about to descend was the chimney of a 
Chinese hovel or a British palace. We plunged! 

And, consciously or unconsciously, with eyes shut 
or eyes open, we have been plunging ever since. 
Thought is a tremendous venture, and some timid 
souls have shrunk from making it. Descartes, the 
most eminent of all French philosophers, almost 
frightens us out of making the attempt. ‘Inasmuch 


158 The Crystal Pointers 


as my reason convinces me,’ he says, ‘that I ought 
to be as careful to withhold my belief from things 
not quite certain and indubitable as from those 
which I plainly believe to be false, it will be a suffi- 
cient ground to me for rejecting all my old opin- 
ions if I find in them some opening for doubt.’ But 
let me ask our French philosopher a question. Is 
there not risk in caution as well as in enterprise? 
If | accept no view in which there is ‘an opening for 
doubt’ shall I not be deprived of nine hundred and 
ninety-nine conclusions out of every thousand? 
There are very few matters on which, along purely 
intellectual lines, I can attain to absolute certainty. 
Matthew Arnold depicts Descartes looking out of 
his window at Amsterdam, seeing the public square 
crowded with men and women, yet saying to him- 
self that he has no right to assume that these are 
really men and women; they may, after all, be mere 
lay figures dressed up in hats and cloaks! His 
famous doctrine of ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ (‘I think, 
therefore I am’) convinced him that he himself is; 
but how can he be sure that these moving figures 
in the market place think, and that, therefore, they 
are? And, since he is pledged to reject any opinion 
in which there is any opening for doubt, he must 
tear from his mind the ‘assumption that these things 
that he sees are men and women of warm flesh and 
blood, tingling with passions like unto his own!’ 
Now here we have a brilliant mind standing where 
the roads fork. Each road is perilous. If he believes 


The Risky Road 150 


these bustling creatures in the market place to be 
men and women, he may be the victim of an illusion; 
there is ‘an opening for doubt.’ If, on the other 
hand, he rejects that conclusion, he stultifies his con- 
sciousness and leaves himself stranded, like Crusoe 
on his island, on a lonely universe. He himself is 
the only being of whose existence he can be con- 
fident. Thought is risky, of course; but, on the 
whole, the cautious path is just as perilous. 

Faith, too, is a stupendous enterprise, and many 
hesitate to embark upon it. If I believe, I run the 
risk that I may believe the wrong things. But it 
is better to take the risk, for, if I shrink from the 
venture, I shall fail to believe in the right things; 
and I may as well believe in the false as fail to believe 
in the true. Indeed, experience shows that those 
who, fearful of taking the risk, withhold their cre- 
dence from facts, finish up by yielding it to folly. 
In all these things, the path of safety is the path of 
enterprise. It is better to think, for the simple 
reason that it is better to think wrongly than not 
to think at all. It is better to believe; I can but 
believe wrongly; and it is better to believe wrongly 
than not to believe at all. It is better to believe in 
anything than to believe in nothing; it is better to 
believe in anybody than to believe in nobody. 

And Love is the greatest venture of all. But it is 
best to take it. For here again the same rule applies: 
it is better to love those who cannot appreciate our 
love than never to love anyone at all. aie 


160 The Crystal Pointers 


in Evangeline, says that Love never made its ven- 
ture vainly. 


Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted; 

If it enrich not the heart of ‘another, its waters, returning 

Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of 
refreshment ; 

That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the 
fountain. 


It is easy enough to laugh at the boy who deliber- 
ately dashes in front of the motor-car, and at his 
companion on the wall; but, when you are tired of 
laughing, it will probably occur to you that this 
extraordinary propensity of ours is one of the finest 
things about us. Nothing renders an enterprise more 
attractive than to show that it is extremely haz- 
ardous. Let an explorer demonstrate to the world 
that the expedition that he is about to lead will be 
dogged by death at every step, and men will flock 
by thousands to join his party. Who has not been 
stirred by reading the appeal of Pizarro to the Span- 
iards and the appeal of Garibaldi to the Italians? 
Each of these intrepid leaders secured all the fol- 
lowers he needed by proclaiming the terrible priva- 
tions they would have to endure and the frightful 
risks they would have to run. And when, in our 
own time, Sir Ernest Shackleton proposed a tramp 
across the Antarctic Continent, incidentally calling 
in at the South Pole, he was astonished at the eager- 
ness of men to accompany him. ‘I was,’ he says, 
‘deluged with applications. One would have thought 
that a march through snow and ice for more than 


The Risky Road 161 


two thousand miles was the dizziest climax of human 
happiness and aspiration.’ The occupants of seats 
in the House of Lords and the heirs to some of the 
proudest titles of which the British aristocracy can 
boast, offered to serve in the most menial capacity, 
if only they might be allowed to join the heroic 
enterprise. Naval and military officers volunteered 
to resign their commissions without reward or 
recompense of any kind if only their names might 
be inscribed in the coveted list of members of the 
polar party. The London offices of the expedition 
were mobbed by hundreds of stalwart young fel- 
lows eager for the great adventure; and even school- 
boys exhausted their persuasive faculties in endeav- 
oring to convince Sir Edward that they were older 
than their years. They would cheerfully do any- 
thing afloat or ashore if only the gallant leader would 
find a place for them. The blood tingles in response 
to a call to face life’s hazards. At such a moment 
the soul is at its best. That is why Jesus emphasized 
the hardships of His service. He stamped the sign 
of the Cross upon everything. ‘If any man will come 
after Me,’ He said, ‘let him take up his cross and 
follow Mer He appealed to our passion for the 
risky road, and, as a consequence, the knightliest 
souls of all the ages have thronged to His banner. 


VII 
THE CUCKOO IN THE ROBINS’ NEST 
I 
A Boy brought up in the heart of an English county 
may spend his days in what part of the world he 
will; but he will always spend his nights in the 
English lanes. The Saturday excursions and holiday 
rambles of his boyhood will haunt his dreams as 
long as he lives. To an English boy, a hedgerow is 
a realm of enchantment. His eyes sparkle as he 
approaches it. He knows that he will find bright 
berries, toothsome nuts, sweet brier or fragrant 
wild-flowers;:the hedge never fails to yield one or 
other of these. But it is not these that make his 
heart to beat so quickly. For in his secret soul he 
hopes that, in the hedge, he may come upon a snake 
or a hedgehog or a bird’s-nest, or any one of a score 
of similar treasures. I can see now the glass jars in 
which we kept, carefully preserved in spirits, the 
snakes that we had captured in hedges in the lane. 
And as for the birds’-nests, we had cupboards 
crowded with them! Ever since the world began, 
boys have been fond of bird-nesting. One of the 
earliest books in the Bible instructs them as to how 
they should—and should not—go about it. I am 
162 


The Cuckoo in the Robin’s Nest 163 


thinking this morning—TI scarcely know why—of 
a certain public holiday—it may have been Whit- 
Monday—that we spent rummaging in the lane and 
inthe woods beyond. We came home in the dusk 
tired out and laden with our spoil. The day’s booty 
included a bird’s-nest that puzzled us. ‘The eggs 
were not all alike. One was larger than the others 
and its coloration was slightly different. father, as 
it happened, was away from home; he never failed 
to read such riddles for us. We therefore resolved 
to take the nest to school next morning. We had 
among our teachers one who took an interest in such 
things. He always asked the result of our cricket 
matches; he enquired as to the way in which we had 
spent our holidays; he brought all sorts of curious 
things to school and explained them to us; indeed, he 
went so far as to excite among us a wild suspicion 
that, once upon a time, he had been a boy him- 
self. 

‘Ha, ha!’ he exclaimed, his face lighting up with 
evident interest, as we showed him the nest next 
morning, ‘so you’ve come upon the cuckoo’s tracks. 
Come and look here, boys! You can leave your 
desks and gather round! The class quickly clus- 
tered about him. 

‘See what we have here!’ he continued, enthusi- 
astically. ‘A robin’s nest with six eggs in it. But 
the eggs do not all belong to the robins. The nest 
has had a visitor. A cuckoo has been here!’ He 
picked up the egg that differed from the rest. 


164 The Crystal Pointers 


“The rascal!’ he muttered. ‘See, boys, some folks 
are too lazy to work for themselves, so they throw 
the whole burden on to other people. The cuckoo 
belongs to that class. It builds no nest of its own, 
but lays its eggs in the nests of the other birds. If 
this egg had been left, it would have hatched out into 
a young cuckoo; the robins would have had to rear 
it; and, before it had learned to fly, it would have 
pitched all the young robins out of the nest. What 
do you think of that?” 

I forget what we thought. Iam afraid our judg- 
ment was a harsh one. But, like most such judg- 
ments, it has been softened and moderated with the 
passage of the years. 


il 


The years bring wondrous transformations. Of 
those great lonely woods in which I found the robin’s 
nest, not a tree is left. The hill-side is crowded with 
cottages. The old lane is a busy thoroughfare. And 
the school is not the same place. And, whilst these 
changes have been in progress, my mind has also 
changed. I think more kindly of the cuckoo. For, 
since I found the nest in the woods, I have sat at the 
feet of the great naturalists. And my later teachers 
—Darwin and Jefferies particularly—have taught 
me charity. 

The Mohammedans say that the cuckoo is the only 
bird that we shall find in Heaven. I do not go so 
far as that; but Charles Darwin and Richard Jef- 


The Cuckoo in the Robin’s Nest 165 


feries have shown me that the cuckoo is confronted 
by difficulties that are almost insuperable. If we 
only took the trouble to go more carefully into the 
matter, we should probably find that most of the 
people whose conduct we condemn are beset by 
temptations and perplexities of which we ourselves 
know little or nothing. If we were placed as they 
are placed we should probably do no better than they 
are doing. ; 
Darwin points out that the cuckoo is seriously 
embarrassed in two ways. To begin with, she is a 
bird of passage, and her migratory instinct makes 
her course extremely difficult. Her stay in England 
is a brief one. But, on the other hand, her method 
of rearing a family is singularly protracted. For, 
instead of laying her eggs at short intervals, as do 
the other birds, she only lays one or two eggs a week. 
An unconscionable period therefore intervenes be- 
tween the laying of the first egg and the laying of the 
last. As Darwin points out, ‘if the cuckoo were to 
make her own nest, and sit on her own eggs, those 
first laid would have to be left for some time unin- 
cubated or there would be eggs and young birds of 
different ages in the same nest.’ And that would 
never do. The older and sturdier fledgelings would 
devour all the available food and would either eject 
the younger members of the family from the nest 
or leave them to starve in it. And, in any case, 
the raising of the family would be a painfully tardy 
and protracted business. But the cuckoo cannot 


166 The Crystal Pointers 


afford to spend so much time over rearing her young. 
The time for migration would probably find her with 
her fledgelings still on her hands. Even the swallow, 
subjected to no such difficulties, is sometimes caught 
in that way. The time for her overseas flight arrives 
whilst her babies are still under her care. Screaming 
in anguish as she flies round the nest that she must 
desert, she takes an agonizing farewell of the brood 
that must miserably perish as soon as she leaves it. 
If this tragedy sometimes overtakes the swallow, it 
would very frequently befall the cuckoo with her 
slower ways. She therefore guards against it by 
confiding her offspring to the care of birds who will 
be able to nourish her fledgelings after she herself 
has flown. 

So much for the Origin of Species!’ Now for 
Field and Hedgerow! Richard Jefferies, who knew 
the cuckoo intimately, states the case from quite 
another standpoint. He declares that, if the cuckoo 
built a nest of her own, and laid her five eggs in it, 
she and her mate would never be able to cope with 
the insatiable demands of her brood. We have no 
idea, he says, of the enormous quantities of food 
that a young cuckoo needs for its support. Its 
incredible voracity—swallow, swallow, swallow; 
gape, gape, gape—is positively astounding. The 
two robins or the pair of hedge-sparrows in whose 
nest the young cuckoo is bred, work the whole day 
through and cannot satisfy him. It is really dis- 
tressing to see their unrewarded toil. The mother- 


The Cuckoo in the Robin’s Nest 167 


cuckoo comes at times to help them; but even then 
the young bird never has enough. ‘How, then,’ 
Jefferies asks, ‘could the cuckoo feed two or three 
of its offspring and itself at the same time? Does 
anybody imagine that the cuckoo could herself feed 
even two young cuckoos? Three would wear her 
out completely. And if there were five young 
cukoos in the nest, it would take all the birds in the 
hedge to satisfy them.’ Jefferies goes on to say that, 
by setting a whole army of foster-parents to work 
to hunt and forage on behalf of its own hungry 
young, the cuckoo causes an immense destruction 
of pestiferous insects and is, therefore, one of the 
most welcome and most valuable of English birds. 
The case, I am aware, is not complete. 1 am not 
claiming an acquittal. Much less am I asking that 
the cuckoo should be exalted to a pedestal as a 
paragon of virtue. He does not leave the court 
without a stain upon his character. Even after 
hearing all that my two illustrious witnesses have 
urged in his defence, we feel sad as we walk through 
the woods and mark the havoc that the cuckoo has 
wrought. We see the dead fledgelings strewn on the 
ground under the nests of the robins and the wrens; 
and we feel that the cuckoo has a good deal to answer 
for. I have simply tried to show that there are 
extenuating circumstances. I feel that if I were in 
the cuckoo’s place, I should manage the business of 
living no better than he does. And if, instead of 
spending so much time and thought upon the cuckoo, 


168 The Crystal Pointers 


I had investigated the cases of all the other accused 
and convicted creatures around me, I should prob- 
ably have concluded the enquiry with a very similar 
feeling. 


PLY 


In another of his books—Wild Life in a Southern 
County—Richard Jefferies raises another curious 
question in relation to the cuckoo; and his answer 
to that question confirms the conclusion that I have 
already reached. The cuckoo, as everybody knows, 
lays her egg in the robin’s nest, But then, why do 
the robins continue to feed and tend the ungainly 
intruder long after they have discovered the aljen 
nature of their strange fledgeling? That is the ques- 
tion; and to that question Jefferies returns a most 
significant and suggestive answer. The robins are 
under no illusion as to the character of the uncomely 
stranger. A robin’s powers of observation are far 
too sharp for that. Why, a robin, perched up there 
in the loftier branches of the elm tree, can pretend 
to be looking at you as you pass along the bridle- 
path through the woods, and, all the while, he is 
carefully observing the movement of an ant or a 
caterpillar crawling through the grass twenty or 
thirty feet below him! It is monstrous, therefore, 
to suppose that such wide-awake eyes are deceived 
as to the nature of the cuckoo. The cuckoo differs 
in plumage. More important still, it differs in size; 
before it leaves the nest it is bigger than its two 


The Cuckoo in the Robin’s Nest 169 


foster-parents put together. And, most important 
of all, it differs in general appearance. It daily 
grows in likeness to the hawk, a bird of which all 
robins stand in mortal dread. Moreover, the 
cuckoo, as it grows, pushes the young robins out of 
the nest, and the poor little things lie dead on the 
grass below. Yet, as long as it needs feeding, the 
parent robins go on feeding it. Why? Jeffries has 
no doubt as to the reason. They feed it at first, he 
says, out of pity for its helplessness. Strange as it 
looks, they themselves hatched it, and they cannot 
let it perish. And they feed it later on because, by 
that time, they have become familiar with it, and 
have even grown fond of it. Their hourly ministry 
to its need has awakened their affection. As a 
woman will become devotedly attached to a found- 
ling babe committed to her care, so these robins grad- 
ually learn to love their queer protégé. Love 1s 
proverbially blind to the ugliness of the object loved. 
The wrens, the finches, and the sparrows, flying by, 
marvel at the hideous creature in the robins’ nest. 
Some of the more timid, settling in the branches 
near by, mistake it for a hawk—the resemblance 
is very close—and fly away screaming in terror. 
But the robins themselves have cared for the cuckoo 
from the first, and, little by little, they have come to 
love it. 

Love is largely a matter of time. The most 
repulsive creatute in all the world is all the world 
to somebody. Somebody has had the patience to get 


170 The Crystal Pointers 


to know him. Somebody—robin-like—has daily 
ministered to his need. And, in spite of everything, 
somebody has found him lovable. Nero is the most 
villainous figure in the entire pageant of Roman 
history. Yet, after his death, a woman came from 
time to time and reverently strewed flowers upon 
his tomb. It is possible, of course, that she knew 
less about Nero than some people. It is at least 
equally possible that she knew more! 

We do not love places because they are so beauti- 
ful. We love them because, like the cuckoo in the 
robin’s nest, they have grown into our lives. They 
have become part of us. Familiarity has bred fond- 
ness. I really believe that you can fall in love with 
anything—even with life itself—if, like the robins, 
you take time over it. Yes, even with life itself. 
I am writing on the thirty-first of December. The 
New Year is knocking at the door. At such times 
we indulge in fond wishes, in sweet anticipations, in 
daring flights of fancy, in noble resolutions, and in 
renewing our loftiest ideals. We send out cards. 
But among those who receive these well-meant greet- 
ings, there are some with whom life has dealt very 
harshly. The past is dark and the future is drab. 
Our dainty greetings awaken within them a spice 
of cynicism. The New Year has no attraction for 
them. They are convinced that the pretty phrases 
on the New Year cards will prove illusory, deceptive, 
phantasmal. I have been led into this train of 
thought by a talk I have just had with Arthur Nor- 


The Cuckoo in the Robin’s Nest 171 


ton. Arthur was opening the New Year greetings 
that the postman had just brought him, and, as he 
read the delicate sentiments inscribed upon the cards, 
I detected a distinct curl of the lip. The past few 
years have dealt rather roughly with him, and he 
is in danger of being soured. He has no confidence 
in the New Year. He looks upon life as the wrens 
and the finches and the sparrows look upon the 
cuckoo in the robin’s nest. He has not learned the 
secret of the robins. It does not occur to him that 
it is possible to fall in love with the thing that so 
affrights him. 

But it is. Robinson Crusoe learned that. When 
he discovered the footprint on his island, he rushed, 
panic-stricken, to his hut, and spent one dreadful 
night in a paroxysm of ungovernable terror. Yet, 
in the issue, that footprint brought into his life 
his man Friday, the dearest and most faithful friend 
he ever had! ‘Wherefore,’ says he, ‘it may not be 
amiss for all people who shall read my story to 
make this just observation from it. For how fre- 
quently, in the course of our lives, the evil which 
in itself we seek most to shun, and which, when we 
are fallen into, is the most dreadful to us, is often- 
times the very means or door of our deliverance, 
by which alone we can be raised again from the 
affliction that has overtaken us.’ It is the old story 
of the robins becoming enamored of the cuckoo. 

Arthur Norton is young. The cynic is always 
young. If he takes my advice he will get into touch 


172 The Crystal Pointers 


with a few elderly people. Grey hairs are invariably 
witnesses to a cheerier view of life. Why, unless 
this be so, are old people so fond of talking of the 
good old times? Why is age proverbially garru- 
lous and reminiscent? It is because the robin has 
fallen in love with the cuckoo. However much our 
grandfathers and grandmothers may have feared 
and distrusted life as they looked forward to its 
stress and struggle, they have lived with it long 
enough to fall in love with it, and they cannot 
imagine that we in our turn are likely to enjoy as 
great a time as they have had. Ask any proud pair 
on their silver wedding day—or, better still, on their 
golden wedding day—whether the rainbow-tinted 
hopes of their marriage morning have been realized, 
and see what they will say! They will say that the 
fulfilment has been lovelier than the promise. The 
truth has been fairer than the dream. They looked 
for glitter and they found pure gold. 

And so, on thinking it over, I discover that the 
ultimate tenderness of the robins for the cuckoo in 
their nest is in keeping with the experience of the 
universe. Things have an amiable way of growing 
upon us. Life, like the intruding cuckoo, may, look 
uncomely enough to some eyes and from some 
angles; but you will never get those who, like the 
robins, have treated it with a little patience and a 
little kindness to say a word against it. 


Vill 
THE EMPTY CRIB 


I 


It was on the lawn in front of the Silverstream 
Manse that I lost my faith in the unimpeachable 
excellence of cleanliness. Cleanliness is a good 
thing; but, like most good things, it can be over- 
done. 

We were lounging under the shade of a giant 
elm—Sidwell, Clive Hislop, John Broadbanks and 
I. We had survived, without much trouble, the 
tedium of a committee meeting, for, on this occasion, 
the dreariness of resolutions and amendments had 
been tempered to us by the idyllic conditions under 
which we met. To keep in line with tradition, the 
meeting should have been held in a dingy classroom 
in the city; but John Broadbanks, who had a genius 
for making drudgery delightful, upset the usual pro- 
cedure. 

‘There are only four of us on the committee,’ he 
wrote to the secretary. ‘Why should we all go 
to town to bore each other to death in a stuffy old 
classroom? Come out to Silverstream; we can have 
the meeting on the lawn; you can bring your pipes; 
and we’ll have some afternoon tea to keep us from 
falling asleep over the business.’ 


173 


174 The Crystal Pointers 


It was so arranged. We quickly reached the end 
of the agenda, and John slipped off to arrange for 
the afternoon tea. On his return to the group, he 
was attended by little Don. Don had an exercise- 
book in his hand and wanted his father to set him 
a copy. Taking his fountain-pen from his vest- 
pocket, John wrote across the top of the page, in his 
best copper-plate, the words: Cleanliness is next to 
Godliness. And Don, advised by his mother to get 
such irksome tasks out of the way as quickly as 
possible, scampered off to copy it at once. 

‘That's wholesome doctrine for a growing boy! 
remarked Hislop, smilingly, as he watched Don’s 
retreating form. 

‘Oh, yes,’ laughed John, ‘it’s a proverb; and, 
somehow, proverbs seem made to be inscribed on 
the pages of copy-books. But, like most proverbs, 
it’s more epigrammatic than true. It’s good as far 
as it goes; but the trouble is, it doesn’t go far. The 
Bible itself warns us, you know, against making 
a fetish of cleanliness. But, I say!’ he exclaimed, 
with sudden enthusiasm, ‘if you fellows have not 
yet chosen your texts for Sunday, I can recom- 
mend that one: Where no oxen are the crib is clean. 
That’s the other side of the proverb that I wrote in 
Don’s copy-book. And it’s a very important side, 
too!’ 

But, at that moment, he was interrupted by the 
arrival of his wife with the afternoon tea. 

‘Sermonizing again!’ exclaimed Lilian, turning 


The Empty Crib 175 


playfully upon him. ‘Do you think these ministers 
want you to talk texts to them all the afternoon?’ 

‘Indeed, it was a very good text that I was giving 
them,’ replied John, in self-defence. “It was the text 
that I often quote to you, my lady, when you 
scold me about the untidiness of my study. As I 
often impress upon you,’ he said, taking the cups 
from her tray in order to hand them to us, ‘it 
would be very easy to keep the study tidy if I never 
went into it. Where no oxen are the crib is clean. 
They’re all going to preach on that text next Sun- 
day: I can see the light of an inspiration coming 
into Sidwell’s face. They'll have a great sermon on 
The Empty Crib at Balclutha on Sunday; you mark 
my words!’ 

The subject passed with the tinkle of the tea- 
cups; and I thought no more about it for many a 
long day. 


II 


That committee-meeting on the Silverstream lawn 
took-place more than twenty years ago; but a couple 
of experiences that fell to my lot on Tuesday 
brought it back with singular vividness to my 
memory. In the afternoon I was visiting at the 
home of Tom and Elsie Reed. Tom and Elsie are 
young people to whom I am very much attached. 
I married them some years ago: they are devoted 
members of the church: and they have three bonnie 
little children. Elsie’s mother lives with them. Mrs. 


176 The Crystal Pointers 


Brown is very old and infirm: and it was to her, 
primarily, that my visit was directed. She is too 
feeble to come to church, and I like to look in 
when it is at all possible. Whilst I was chatting 
with her, Jack, the eldest of her grandchildren, came 
in from school, and, seeing me, came and stood 
beside the old lady’s chair. He listened for a 
moment to our conversation and then started a new 
theme on his own account. 

‘Oh, Granny,’ he cried, ‘you’d get into dreadful 
trouble if you came to school. Teacher says she’s 
going to examine all our hands every morning; and, 
unless they’re as white as white can be, we shall be 
kept in. Just look at yours!’ This brought Elsie 
to the rescue. 

‘Ah, but, Jack,’ reasoned his mother, ‘teacher was 
only speaking of little boys and girls who have 
never done any hard work. It’s quite right for you 
and Lena and Daisy to have white hands. But when 
you get older you'll understand that white hands 
are not the only nice ones.’ She perched herself 
on the arm of her mother’s chair and took one of 
the wrinkled hands in hers. ‘Granny’s hand,’ she 
said, stroking it, ‘is stained and soiled through work- 
ing hard all her life for me and for all your aunties 
and uncles. These hands can never be white now, 
but we think they’re lovely.’ 

Jack sauntered off to think about it; and I, too, 
shortly afterwards took my departure. It was rain- 
ing in torrents, but, all the way home, my mind 


The Empty Crib 177 


was back at Silverstream. I thought of John’s play- 
ful remarks about his study. ‘It would be easy to 
keep the study tidy if I never went into it? I 
thought of Elsie’s remarks about her mother’s hands. 
‘It would be easy to keep your hands white if you 
never did any work!’ And then there came flash- 
ing into my mind the text on which John had urged 
us to preach: Where no oxen are the crib is clean. 
It is strange that I have been so long in taking his 
advice. 

The weather got worse rather than better. It 
was a dreadful night, with a wind that shook the 
house and a rain that lashed wildly at the windows. 
I was glad that I had no engagement. After tea 
I sought the society of cosy slippers, a roaring fire, 
a luxurious arm-chair, and a delightful book. The 
book was the Reminiscences of Sir Henry Hawkins. 
Two pictures soon impressed themselves on my 
imagination. I saw Sir Henry Hawkins at the 
climax of his career, the most popular and most 
powerful advocate of his time. He is waited upon 
by an army of clerks: he moves amidst a whirl of 
papers: he is amassing an enormous fortune. His 
success is phenomenal. But it was not always like 
this. He himself described the inauguration of his 
career. He was entered at the Middle Temple on 
April 16, 1839. He took, as his office, a little room 
at 3 Elm Court: it was approached by five flights of 
stairs. From the window he could see nothing but 
a forest of chimney-pots, and having nothing else 


178 The Crystal Pointers 


to do, he spent a good deal of his time surveying 
them. 

‘The room,’ he says, ‘was cheap and lonely, dull 
and miserable—a melancholy altitude, beyond the 
world and its companionship. Had I been of a 
despairing disposition, I might have gone mad, for 
hope surely never came to a fifth floor. But there 
I sat day by day, week by week, and month by 
month, waiting for the knock that never came, hop- 
ing for the business that might never come.’ Hun- 
dreds of times a day he listened feverishly to the 
steps on the stairs below. Most of them only came 
up one flight: a fair number came up two: some 
even climbed the third: on rare occasions some bold 
adventurer ascended with asthmatical energy the 
fourth: but the fifth! ‘The fifth landing was too 
remote for the postman, for I never got a letter; 
and no squirrel watching from the topmost bough 
of the tallest pine could be more lonely than I!’ This 
was in 1839. 

Look round the rooms in 1859! There are piles 
of papers everywhere: messengers rush in and out: 
the waiting-room is thronged with clients and wit- 
nesses: attorneys pass to and fro: clerks fly hither 
and thither : everything seems in a whirl and a flurry! 

Go back twenty years and glance once more at 
that little upstairs chamber at Elm Court! There 
is a virgin sheet of blotting-paper on the desk: the 
pigeon-holes are empty: the pen-nibs glitter in their 
immaculate cleanliness: the stationery is arranged 


The Empty Crib 179 


in faultless regularity: the law-books are in perfect 
sequence and condition on the shelves. Nothing is 
soiled: nothing is disorderly: nothing is out of 
place. 

Under the genial influence of my fire, I allowed 
the book to sink to my lap: I closed my eyes: I 
surveyed these two pictures side by side. The clean- 
liness of 1839! The confusion of 1859! And then 
—my comfortable conditions asserting themselves 
more unmistakably—my mind wandered. It wan- 
dered back to the events of my afternoon call: it 
journeyed on across the years to the committee- 
meeting on the lawn at Silverstream: it took hold 
once more of the text that John quoted that day 
with such effect. Where no oxen are the crib 1s 
clean. The unused study is easily kept tidy. The 
hands that are never soiled by domestic ministries 
can easily be preserved in milky whiteness. The 
upstairs office to which no client ever comes can 
easily be kept free from flurry and confusion. The 
stall into which no cattle are ever led is easily kept 
from litter and defilement. 


III 


Cleanliness is next to Godliness, says the proverb 
that John Broadbanks inscribed so boldly in his boy’s 
copy-book. It sometimes is. And sometimes, on 
the contrary, it is as far from godliness as pole is 
from pole. Cleanliness is often a blessing; but it 
is often a curse. In the fourth chapter of his ter- 


180 The Crystal Pointers 


rible prophecy, Amos tells of the horrors that the 
Most High has sent upon his reprobate people in 
hope of leading them to repentance. ‘I have sent 
unto you war and pestilence and famine, yet have 
ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord. And I 
also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your 
cities, and want of bread in all your houses, yet have 
ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord.’ 

Cleanness of teeth! The cleanliness that is not a 
blessing but a curse, and a curse most terrible! I 
know a man whose ledger is spotlessly clean: his 
business is a failure! I know a woman whose | 
nursery is hushed and neat: her child is dead! I 
know a carpenter on whose workshop floor there is 
no litter of shavings: he has taken to drink, and 
never goes near his bench! In each case it is 
because there are no oxen that the crib is clean. The 
cleanliness is the cleanliness of stagnation; the clean- 
liness of inactivity; the cleanliness of death. 

Like everything else, cleanliness may be purchased 
at too high a price. The grocer cannot afford the 
clean ledger: the barrister cannot afford a tidy office: 
the farmer cannot afford the clean but empty stall. 
Herein lies the weakness of monasticism. I may 
prevent the dust and defilement of the world from 
settling on my soul by imprisoning myself in a 
cloister. But, separated from the world, I can no 
longer serve the world. I have stultified and dis- 
qualified myself. I have rendered it impossible for . 
me to do the work that I was sent into the world to 


The Empty Crib 181 


do. It is better for me to enter into the hurly-burly 
and to do my work, even though my soul gets some- 
what dusty in the doing of it. By entering a con- 
vent a woman may render indelible the virgin sweet- 
ness of her chastity. But it is the hand that rocks 
the cradle that rules the world. There hangs before 
me as I write a picture entitled More Heavens than 
One. I fell in love with it as it stood in a picture- 
dealer’s window many years ago, and bore it home 
with singular exultation. It represents a nun passing 
the open door of a workman’s cottage. The wife— 
a young woman of simple beauty and homely charm 
—has prepared the evening meal in readiness for 
her husband’s arrival. As she waits his coming she 
plays with a curly-headed little toddler perched on 
the edge of the table, whilst a baby slumbers serenely 
in the cradle at her feet. Her knitting is lying close 
at hand, and the evidences of her womanly touch 
are everywhere. The nun, glancing in at the door, 
feels that her cloistral life has saved her from an 
infinity of toil and moil; but has she paid too high 
a price for that immunity? That is the question 
skilfully expressed in her countenance. Has she 
bought the cleanness of the stall by sacrificing the 
oxen? There are, she feels, more heavens than one, 
and she is by no means sure that her heaven is the 
heavenliest. 


IV 


The empty crib saves the farmer a lot of trouble; 


182 The Crystal Pointers 


but, on the whole, it would be better for him if it 
were occupied by oxen and needed constant cleans- 
ing and attention. He has a clean crib, it is true; 
but, on the other hand, he has no oxen with which to 
plough, and his farm must go to rack and ruin. 
The same principle holds true of the easy conscience 
and the complacent soul. Where no oxen are the 
crib is clean, and, where no illumination is, the con- 
science is clean also. An uninstructed conscience 
may be coaxed into approving of any enormity. 
Every crime in the calendar has at some time or 
other been committed by a man whose conscience 
applauded the deed. 

The atmosphere of the dining-room looks perfectly 
free of dust until a shaft of light suddenly shines 
across it, and then, in that luminous line, a million 
specks are seen to be dancing. It isa parable. When 
there was no divine work going forward in the 
heart of Job, he talked all day long of his integrity 
and charity; but, when a spiritual illumination broke 
upon him, he abhorred himself and repented in dust 
and ashes. Before Paul caught the vision on the 
road to Damascus, his soul was like an empty crib. 
Nothing was going on there. And, as a consequence, 
he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, proud and per- 
fectly content. But when there began in his soul 
that wondrous work that transfigured him and, 
through him, shook the world, he cried out of the 
bitterness of his spirit that of sinners he was chief. 

Let every minister be thankful that his study 


The Empty Crib 183 


needs tidying: let every barrister be thankful for 
the bustle and confusion of his office: let every 
carpenter be thankful for the heap of shavings on 
the floor: let every mother be thankful for the tu- 
mult in the nursery: let every farmer be thankful for 
the crib that needs cleaning out! It shows that there 
is something doing. In exactly the same way, let 
every man be thankful when his conscience cries out 
against him: the evil day is the day on which con- 
science resolves to speak no more. And, above all, 
let every man be thankful at having discovered the 
defilement and contamination of his own soul. As 
with the defilement in the farmer’s stall, it is a sign 
of life. We have all heard of the visitor who, 
inspecting a little country cemetery, pitied the ill- 
health of the grave-digger. “You've a terrible 
cough;’ he said. ‘Umph,’ retorted the old man; ‘but 
there’s plenty here’—pointing to the tombs—‘would 
be very glad o’ my cough! ‘That isso. The cough 
is a sign of life; but, for all that, the cough must 
be cured or it will drag the old man down to his 
grave. The sight of the dirty crib is a healthy 
sight, but it is at the same time a call for cleansing. 
The torments of an aroused conscience and the 
recognition of inward pollution are symptoms of 
spiritual vitality for which a wise man will give 
thanks on bended knees; but they are useless and 
worse than useless unless they drive him, in his 
desperation, to the fountain opened for all sin and 
for all uncleanness. 





PART III 





I 


‘WHAT’S MONEY?’ 


‘Papa! what's money?’ 

That was the abrupt question with which frail 
little Paul Dombey startled his poor father on a 
certain very memorable day in the familiar history 
of that famous family. 

‘What's money?’ It is wonderful how adroitly 
a child probes to the very heart of things. Every- 
body who has read Charles Dickens’s clever story 
knows how awkwardly the great financier fenced 
and floundered in his attempt to frame a satisfac- 
tory reply. : 

‘What is money, Paul! Money? Money?’ 

Mr. Dombey did not seem to know. That is the 
trouble; nobody seems to know. And most cer- 
tainly the Churches do not seem to know. Money 
is the dominating factor in the busy world outside 
the Churches; and the Churches have no doctrine 
on the subject! What is money? asks Paul Dom- 
bey of his father. And his puzzled father turns to 
the Churches in his despair. ‘What is money?’— 
Mr. Dombey wants to know. And his question 
puzzles the Churches, just as much as little Paul’s 
question puzzled him. What ts money? Is it good 

187 


188 The Crystal Pointers 


or is it bad? Is it cruel or is it kind? It is time 
that we made up our minds. Mr. Dombey cannot 
enlighten the mind of little Paul until the Churches 
have answered the question that he has a perfect 
right to ask. The Churches too often speak of 
money as though it «is a very good thing when it 
comes to church; but a very doubtful quantity any- 
where else. But that will never do. We are not 
prepared to admit that men are good men when 
they come to church if we know them to be bad men 
everywhere else. Why, then, should we treat men 
on one principle and money on another? 

I have just been on a visit to one of the more 
remote districts of this great Australian continent. 
On Wednesday I had to motor eighty miles through 
desert and bush to the nearest railway station. When 
I settled down in the train it occurred to me that 
I had brought nothing to read. Glancing round the 
compartment I noticed on the hat-rail a crumpled 
newspaper. It was published in a little up-country 
town that I had never seen, and was several days 
old. I soon became absorbed in a detailed report 
of a church anniversary. The names were all 
strange to me: but I was interested in the descrip- 
tion of the decorations, the music, and the speeches. 
Especially the speeches. And then, after luxuriating 
in a cleverly written epitome of a most suggestive 
and inspiring deliverance, I came suddenly upon one 
or two sentences that set me thinking. ‘The col- 
lection was then taken,’ says the report. ‘The chink 


What’s Money? 189 


of the money seemed quite out of harmony with 
such a spiritual and forcible address as that which 
had just been delivered. Two octaves would not 
represent the declivity from the speech to the col- 
lection.’ Now what is this curiosity that we have 
discovered in this crumpled newspaper? If money ts 
good—if it is even temporarily good during its 
presence in church—why should the chink of the 
money seem such a discord at the close of an 
intensely spiritual oration? The address was at 
best a matter of speech; whilst the collection repre- 
sents a certain amount of sacrifice. Is not sacrifice 
as spiritual as speech? The answer is so obvious 
that we need not wait for it. Then why, to the 
writer of this report, was there something jarring 
and discordant about the chink of the coin? The 
fact is that the writer of the report must be credited 
‘with a logical faculty. He felt, as I feel, that we 
are hopelessly illogical in assuming that a sovereign 
is a sinner in the street and a saint in the sanctuary. 
It is either good or bad everywhere: it is a saint or 
a sinner all the time. The reporter harshly assumes 
that it is a sinner everywhere, and, therefore, out of 
place in church. I, on the other hand, am prepared 
to argue that it is a saint everywhere, and, therefore, 
to be revered even in the market-place. Between the 
earnest tone of the preacher and the chink of coin I 
detect no discord whatsoever. 

‘Speaking o’ money,’ said the night-watchman in 
Mr. W. W. Jacobs’ Light Freights, as he selected 


190 The Crystal Pointers 


an empty soap box on the wharf for a seat, ‘speaking 
o’ money, the whole world would be different if 
we all ‘ad more of it. It would be a brighter and a 
‘appier place for everybody!’ I am inclined, on the 
whole, to agree with the philosophical night-watch- 
man. But how could I agree with him unless I 
believed that money is a good thing; good in itself 
apart from all the accidents of time and place; good 
in the dainty purse of a millionaire or in the dusty 
pocket of a laborer; good in the crowded street and 
good in the quiet sanctuary; good always and every- 
where? “The whole world would be different if we 
all “ad more of it!’ says the night-watchman; and 
several instances rush to mind to vindicate the sweep- 
ing proposition. What about Wordsworth? Words- 
worth never rose to real sublimity until he was 
liberated from the stress of financial anxiety. And 
what about Wordsworth’s successor—what about 
Lord Tennyson? Everybody who is familiar with 
the biography will recall that long and barren period 
in the poet’s life during which the muse was stifled 
by poverty. And what about Robert Louis Steven- 
son? The dread of poverty haunted the soul of 
Stevenson like a nightmare. ‘It is dibs that are 
wanted,’ he writes to Henley, at the beginning of 
his career; and, at the end, it was still the same. 
‘Poor Stevenson ought never to have had to think 
of money,’ says Miss Masson, in her monograph, 
‘yet he had to worry about it all his life.’ If Robert 
Louis Stevenson had been freed from all such cares, 


What’s Money? IOI 


we might have had several more books of the stamp 
of Treasure Island ; and if Nathaniel Hawthorne had 
been saved from his worry about money, we might 
have had a succession of novels as powerful as The 
Scarlet Letter. There are, I know, instances of men 
and women who have done in poverty what they 
could not possibly have done in wealth, just as 
there are instances of men and women who have 
done in sickness what they could not possibly have 
done in health. But that, of course, proves nothing. 
Health is a good thing; and money is a good thing; 
and the night-watchman’s contention is almost 
axiomatic. 

‘Your money or your life!’ cries the highwayman. 
‘Life is sweet! thinks his victim. But money is 
sweet, too: and: the man who speaks contemptuously 
of money is not to be trusted. When he was robbed 
on the high-road, Mr. Little Faith only lost his 
spending-money, Bunyan tells us; but Bunyan was 
sincere enough and human enough to show that the 
theft of his pocket-money was a very bitter loss 
to the poor pilgrim. ‘He was forced to beg as he 
went to keep himself alive; but beg and do what he 
could, he still went hungry most of the way.’ The 
loss of money is often a terribly tragic one. “I have 
never known,’ says Joseph Brierley, in one of his 
fine essays, ‘I have never known any grief that ended 
life very quickly, except this single grief of sudden 
and unexpected pecuniary ruin. Failures like those 
of the City of Glasgow Bank and the Liberator 


192 The Crystal Pointers 


Society, led in many cases to death or madness. 
Even when there was fortitude enough to go on 
with life, the life was often permanently shadowed 
and embittered. It is so very hard to go on for 
years and years accumulating by strict frugality a 
provision for one’s’self and one’s own family circle, 
and see it all swept away in a moment by the deceit 
of the men we have trusted. Young men can renew 
the battle; so can middle-aged men, though they see 
very well that it means that they must struggle to 
the very end, and that that end is nearer than it 
would otherwise have been. But when one is old 
and weary, and cannot hope to do much in making 
the loss good, and is condemned to witness, hour 
after hour and day by day, the privations which he 
had toiled so hard to avert from him and his, the 
bitterness seems incurable; the loss is without recov- 
ery; the life is dashed to pieces.’ When the high- 
wayman cries ‘Your money or your life!’ he forgets 
that a man’s money is his life; it is simply the 
mechanism by which we store up the superfluous 
vigor of youth to sustain us amidst the frailties of 
age. It is all very fine for shallow pulpiteers to 
deride the worth of gold; but, if time and space per- 
mitted, I would be prepared to prove that half the 
pathos and half the tragedy and half the heroism 
of the planet is wrapped up in money bags. Some 
of the bravest fights that have ever been fought have 
been the conflicts of noble souls against impending 
ruin; and some of the greatest heart-breaks that have 


What’s Money? 193 


ever occurred have been connected with the loss of 
fortune. Yes, life is very sweet, but money is 
scarcely less so; and when the highwayman shouts 
‘Your money or your life!’ the surrender in either 
case must be very bitter. 

Yet we must be careful. One of the finest things 
ever said about money fell from the lips of David 
Elginbrod. Everybody loved and reverenced David: 
he is the most satisfying of all George Macdonald’s 
heroes. He looked like a giant; he seemed to have 
come of some huge antediluvian breed; yet nobody 
was more gentle, more refined, more lovable than 
he. He was only a servant; he lived in a poor little 
cottage; yet everybody, from the laird to the plough- 
boys, implicitly obeyed him. He ruled the estate 
like a king. He was a philosopher, too. On the 
particular occasion of which I am now thinking he 
is comforting the poor young tutor, Hugh Suther- 
land, who has been grievously affronted by the vio- 
lent behavior of the laird’s wife. David urges Hugh 
to bear with her. 

‘Ye see,’ he says, ‘she hasna had fair play. She 
doesna come o’ a guid breed.’ 

Hugh is astonished, and says so. ‘I thought,’ he 
exclaims, ‘that she brought the laird a good property.’ 

‘Ow, aye,’ David replies, ‘she brocht him lots 0’ 
siller; but hoo was’t gotten? The mistress’s father 
made his siller in creepin’, crafty ways. He was a 
bit merchan’ in Aberdeen; an’ aye keepit his thumb 
weel ahint the end of his measure, sae ’at he made 


194 The Crystal Pointers 


an inch on ilka yard he sauld. Sae he took frae his 
soul and pit it into his siller-bagl 

William Law has three noble chapters on The 
Wise and Pious Use of our Estates; but he has 
nothing more incisive and searching than that 
remark of David Elginbrod’s ‘He took from his soul 
and put it into is siller-bag,’ 

Gold can be degraded, of course; but the very 
fact that it can be degraded shows that there is 
something good about it. The cynic says that money 
dominates everything. ‘Most things are done for 
money, he says, ‘and, in return for money, almost 
anything is to be had.’ But the cynic, as usual, goes 
too far. If he were right in saying that everything 
is done for money, then it would follow that to 
money we owe everything. And, much as I esteem 
the moral value of money, I am not prepared to go 
as far as that. It is true that, lured by the prospect 
of gold, we all do things that otherwise we should 
have left undone. Money calls out our capacities; 
it makes us pull ourselves together; it compels us to 
do our best. But, when the cynic implies that money 
can effect anything, he is clearly mistaken. The 
limitations of money are much more striking than its 
achievements. Even Paul Dombey, in whose com- 
pany we set out, noticed that. 

‘What can money do?’ asked the little invalid. 

‘Do, Paul? replied his father, ‘money can do 
anything.’ 

‘Then why didn’t money save my mamma?’ asked 


What’s Money? 195 


Paul, thinking of the sad and silent grave in the 
churchyard. . 

To be sure. The child’s question struck the finan- 
cier’s faith as the torpedo of a submarine strikes 
a huge ocean liner. It heeled over and perished 
instantly. Tell me one thing that can be got for 
money, and I will tell you fifty that cannot. Mr. 
Chesterton says that the things which men can be 
bribed into doing are comparatively few. “No man,’ 
he says, ‘would, at a society dinner, drink out Ola 
soup tureen for money. He would not wear his 
coattails in front for money. And he would not for 
money spread a report that he had softening of the 
brain.’ Kingsley, too, in the Water Babies, says 
that the barnacles on a lobster’s claws are consid- 
ered a great mark of distinction in lobsterdom, ‘and 
no more to be bought for money than a good con- 
science or the Victoria Cross!’ 

‘Oh, money, money, money!’ cried poor Charles 
Lamb passionately, ‘how blindly hast thou been wor- 
shipped and how stupidly abused! Thou art health 
and liberty and strength; and he that hath thee may 
rattle his pockets at the devil?’ ’Twas well and 
bravely spoken! At last, at last we have discovered 
sense and spirituality in the same breath! A sov- 
ereign is a saint, and not a sinner, after all! As 
with every genuine saint, you must neither worship 
nor abuse him. ‘He that hath thee can rattle Is 
pockets at the devil!’ Wow can there be anything 
discordant in the chink of the collection after this? 


196 The Crystal Pointers 


The fact is that money provides the one opportunity 
that most of us have of doing a little good before 
we die. I learned that bit of profound wisdom 
from old Davie Glendenning. Davie was one of the 
most obscure members of the Mosgiel church; but 
he was the truest: philosopher on the subject of 
finance that I have ever met. He was only a mill- 
hand, it is true, but his name is very great in the 
kingdom of God. He has gone now; so that | am 
violating no confidence. He was no scholar, and 
I used to help him with his correspondence. ‘The 
thing that astonished me was its magnitude and its 
character. There were letters from Dr. Barnardo’s 
Homes, from Missionary Societies, from Hospital 
Boards, and from charitable institutions of all kinds. 
One day I asked him what it all meant. 

‘Weel,’ he said, ‘sit ye doon, an’ I'll tell ye. I 
aye feel that I maun dae my bittie every week for 
the puir wee bairnies that hae neither faither nor 
mither. But I cud na’ tak’ a bairnie into this bit 
hame, ye ken! An’ then, ye mind what the Maister 
said aboot gaein’ an’ preachin’ the gospel to a’ the 
world; but hoo cud Davie gae? And hoo cud Davie 
preach? And it makes my heart sore, ye ken, 
to think o’ the puir things that are sick or in pain; 
but hoo can Davie nurse and tend them? Sae this 
is what I do. The first ’oor in the mill every day I 
ca’ the Lord’s ’oor. On Monday, frae echt till nine, 
I says to mysel’, “Davie, lad, dae a guid bit o 
onest wark noo for the wee bairnies without faithers 


What’s Money? 197 


or mithers.” And on Tuesday I says to mysel’, 
“Now, Davie, lad, ye’re gaen’ to dae an ’oor’s guid 
wark for India the day!’ And on Wednesday 1 
says to mysel’, says I, “Davie, my mon, noo dae the 
vera best ye can frae echt till nine for the puir folk 
in their pain.”’ And so on. On pay-day he put 
the wages of those sacred hours into little boxes 
that he had made on purpose. Once a quarter he 
had a glorious time in sending off his gifts. And 
Davie thought money just the loveliest contrivance 
that was ever invented. Davie would have said 
that a sovereign was a saint every time. 


II 
EMPDY PRIGEHERS 


at 


IT was a Saturday morning. A farmer, calling at 
the manse with eggs, told me that John Broadbanks 
had been ili. In the afternoon, therefore, I set out 
for Silverstream; and, to my delight, found John 
sunning himself on the broad verandah. 

‘Yes,’ he said, with a brave attempt at a laugh, 
‘Pve had a bad time; but that’s past. The thing 
that’s worrying me now is the future.’ I bade him 
be more precise. 

‘Well, he explained, ‘to-morrow’s our Sunday 
School anniversary; and I haven’t an idea in my 
head suited to such an occasion.’ 

We soon agreed that he was to drive over to 
Mosgiel and preach a couple of his old sermons— 
sermons that the Mosgiel folk always enjoyed— 
whilst I remained at Silverstream and conducted 
the anniversary. He set out almost at once in order 
to complete the journey before sunset. 

When I entered into the new arrangement it was 
my intention, too, to preach old sermons. We had 
recently celebrated the anniversary of our Sunday 
School at Mosgiel, and the addresses that I had 

198 


Empty Pitchers 199 


delivered on that occasion were fresh in my mind. 
But it was otherwise ordered. During that Saturday 
evening I had John’s study to myself. I sat in his 
arm-chair beside a noble fire, and casually picked 
up his study Bible. And what was this? Ina trice 
I seemed to be admiring a series of pictures which 
passed before my fancy with realistic and cine- 
matographic effect. For this is the text that greeted 
me: ‘Their nobles have sent their little ones to the 
waters; they came to the wells, and found no water; 
they returned with their vessels empty; they were 
ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.’ 
How fond children are of pictures! ‘On the mor- 
row,’ I said to myself, ‘I will display these! It will 
save me a sermon, and they will like it very much 
better !’ 


II 


And here, to begin with, is a Picture of Mer- 
riment! Does no one else see them, these laughing 
children, with their sparkling eyes and roguish faces, 
trooping off with their pitchers to the waters? I 
can distinctly hear their silvery peals of merriment, 
and see their graceful antics, as they rush pell-mell 
to the distant wells. If it were a sermon that I had 
to preach, I suppose I should make the scene to turn 
round three key-words: 1. Authority—Were they 
not sent by their parents, the nobles? 2. Expect- 
ancy.—Were they not going to the wells? 3. Capac- 
ity—Had they not their pitchers in their hands? 


200 The Crystal Pointers 


But it is mot a sermon. It is a picture—a picture 
of a wild, childish rush from the home to the wells. 
And the only object in the picture that lends it 
seriousness is the pitcher that each child carries in 
his hand. And that empty pitcher is well worth 
a second glance. _The wonderful capacity of a 
child! Macaulay enlarges upon it in his essay on 
Milton; Wordsworth translates it into poetry in his 
Ode on Immortality; George Eliot writes of it with 
enthusiasm in Adam Bede; Professor Illingsworth 
argues from it in his Personality. And the historian, 
the poet, the novelist, and the philosopher are all of 
them right. It is wonderful, this amazing facility 
of the child for imbibing spiritual enlightenment. 
He has a perfect genius for mysticism. His insight 
is astounding. We are never quite so receptive 
again. Tell a little child the glorious story of Beth- 
lehem—the vigil of the shepherds, the song of the 
angels, the Babe in the manger! How he drinks 
it all in! Tell the same story to an adult, and he 
wants to debate with you about what he is pleased 
to call the Incarnation! Tell a little child the story 
of the Cross; tell him of its unutterable love and 
anguish; tell him that Jesus died for him! He will 
accept it all, and find no difficulty anywhere. Relate 
to an adult the same awful facts, and he will ask 
for a theory of the Atonement! But the child’s 
view is the true view, and the adult will come back 
to it if he lives long enough and becomes wise 
enough. Yes; I will hold up this picture of these 


Empty Pitchers 201 


merry children and their empty pitchers to-morrow ; 
it will at least encourage the teachers and the 
parents. They will surely see, as they look upon it, 
how wonderfully open and ready and eager these 
children are for the truth their seniors are so 
anxious to impart. If only we seniors knew how 
to impart it with simplicity, winsomeness and grace! 


Til 


The second picture is a Picture of Mockery. For 
see what a gloom settles on the screen! ‘They came 
to the wells, and found no water.’ 1 doubt if this 
old world of ours contains anything more grievous 
than the bitter disappointment of a little child. 
Only last evening I was reading an experience of 
Booker Washington’s. It was in the early days of 
his brave struggle for the uplift of the emancipated 
slaves. And this is what he says: “Early one 
morning I was standing near the dining-room door, 
listening to the complaints of the students. The 
complaints that morning were especially emphatic 
and numerous, for the whole breakfast had been a 
failure. One of the girls, who had obtained nothing 
to eat, came out to the well to draw some water 
to drink, to take the place of the meal which she had 
been unable to get. When she reached the well she 
found that, the rope being broken, she could get 
no water. She turned from the well, and said, ina 
bitterly disappointed tone, not knowing that I could 
hear her: “We can’t even get water to drink at 


202 The Crystal Pointers 


this school!” I think no one remark ever came so 
near discouraging me as that one.’ It is a com- 
panion picture to the one before me. ‘They came 
to the wells, and found no water. Yes; it is a bitter 
thing to disappoint a child. The empty stocking on 
Christmas morning; the pouring rain on the day 
of the picnic; the broken promise or the shattered 
toy! But there are some disappointments that 
gather to themselves all the elements of a wicked 
mockery. Here in the picture is a well; but a well 
without water! That is the irony of it. There 
is external gear and paraphernalia without the 
internal fountain and supply. That picture, as an 
anniversary study, is a very searching and a very 
effective one. I fancied, sitting in John’s chair, that 
my hand would tremble even as I displayed it, lest 
it should seem but an emblem of my own poor 
ministry. It is so easy to present, like the well to 
which these Jewish children came, the outward form, 
without the spring that cools parched lips with satis- 
fying draughts. A well without water; a ministry 
without freshness; a Church without vitality; a 
teacher without insight! If the first picture pro- 
voked my smiles, this one may surely move me to 
apprehension and to tears! 


IV 


The third picture—the saddest of them all—is a 
Picture of Misery. ‘They returned with their ves- 
sels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and 


Empty Pitchers 203 


covered their heads.’ It is a pitiful picture, this 
third one. It asks Mrs. Browning’s historic ques- 
tion over again: 
Do you hear the children weeping, O my brothers, 
Ere the sorrow comes with years? 
They are leaning their young hands against their mothers, 
And that cannot stop their tears. 
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, 
The young birds are chirping in the nest, 
The young fawns are playing with the shadows, 
The young flowers are blowing towards the west; ~ 
But the young, young children, O my brothers, 
They are weeping bitterly! 
They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 
In the country of the free! 


It is a dreadful thing to think that little children 
may turn away from our ministries as these children 
in the picture turned away from the mocking well. 
Charles Bradlaugh is a case in point. We recall, 
with a sorrow that is almost anger, the melancholy 
fact that there was a day when, like the children 
in the picture, he went with his empty pitcher to 
the well. He carried his doubts, that is to say, to 
his minister. And his minister, so far from showing 
him the sympathy that he had a right to expect, 
threw up his hands in horror, and reported the young 
sceptic to his father. ‘He returned with his vessel 
empty; he was ashamed and confounded, and covered 
his head’ 

And the pity of it is that all this stands in such 
ghastly contrast to the very essence and nature of 
the Gospel that we represent. Does that Gospel 
ever disappoint? We remember the deathbed of 


204 The Crystal Pointers 


Oliver Cromwell. Turning to those about him, he 
exclaimed: ‘All the promises of God are in Him 
Yea, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God by us— 
by us, nm Jesus Christ’ And we remember the more 
recent deathbed of General Booth. ‘They are sure, 
they are sure, the promises of God, if we only 
believe.’ Yes; the glory of the Gospel is its unim- 
peachable integrity, its splendid reliability, its abso- 
lute security. It never disappoints, and it is a thou- 
sand shames if we make it disappointing. 

Does the Bible ever disappoint? Do children ever 
get weary of the stories of Joseph and Moses and 
Samuel and Daniel? There are no children’s stories 
in the world to compare with them. As Alexander 
Smith says, in Dreamthorpe: ‘All history unrolls 
before me! I breathe the morning air of the world 
while the scent of Eden’s roses yet lingered in it; 
while it vibrated only to the world’s first burst of 
nightingales and to the laugh of Eve. What a 
silence in these ancient records as of a half-peopled 
world! What bleating of flocks; what green pastoral 
rest; what indubitable human existence! Across 
brawling centuries of blood and war I hear the 
bleating of Abraham’s flocks, the tinkling of the 
bells of Rebekah’s camels! O men and women so 
far separated, and yet so near, by what miraculous 
power do I know ye all? What King’s court can 
boast such company? What School of Philosophy 
such wisdom?’ The Bible never disappointed a 
little child yet. 


Empty Pitchers 205 


Does Jesus ever disappoint? Did ever teacher 
find a child turning heavily away from one of His 
graceful parables, or from one of His matchless 
miracles, or from any of the enchanting stories of 
His own wonderful life? No, no, no! That never 
happens. And, just because it never happens, I 
must learn to understand the Gospel more perfectly, 
and to know my Bible more familiarly, and to love 
the Saviour more intimately. And then never, 
never, never in my ministry will this evil and bitter 
thing come to pass that these pictures so pathetically 
represent: ‘Their nobles have sent their little ones 
to the waters; they came to the wells and found no 
water; they returned with their vessels empty; they 
were ashamed and confounded, and covered their 
heads.’ 


Vv 


Helped by a glorious day—one of those days on 
which every nerve tingles with the ecstasy of living— 
we had a capital anniversary at Silverstream next 
day. And on the Monday morning, as John and I 
sat together on the broad verandah, | told him of the 
picture-gallery that I had discovered in his Bible. 


Ill 
MEABL OLDS 


“YEs, sir,’ replied the chemist, after listening to 
the tale of my requirements, ‘and would you like it 
in liquid or in tabloid form?’ 

Until that moment I had no idea that the com- 
modity I sought was prepared in tabloid form. But 
I was not surprised. We take everything nowadays 
by way of tabloids. The tabloid represents the spirit 
of the age. At least, it represents one of them. For 
there are two, and they are twins; although, unlike 
most twins, they bear no resemblance to each other. 
We are all under their influence. Some are domi- 
nated by the first, whilst, in others, the second has 
gained the upper hand; but, in each of us, to some 
extent, both tendencies are simultaneously at work. 
The one is the spirit of the Tabloid; the other is the 
spirit of the Tableau. 

For, oddly enough, the passion for the spectacular 
and the passion for compression go side by side. 
So far as a man is under the authority of the Tableau 
Spirit, he believes in making the most of everything. 
His life is a kind of displayed advertisement. He 
speaks—metaphorically, at any rate—at the top of 
his voice; he puts all his goods in the window; he 

206 


Tabloids 207 


works up tremendous excitements over the most 
trivial events; he runs a very big business on a very 
small capital; with a minimum of ability he secures 
to himself a maximum of publicity; his favorite 
text is the warning against hiding one’s light under 
a bushel. Dominated by the Tableau Spirit, we like 
to see much made of little. We like to see molehills 
tricked out as mountains. We like to see common- 
places transformed into sensations. It affords us 
infinite delight to see the small episodes of street- 
life converted into the thrills of the cinematograph. 
And, if the newspaper contains no intelligence of 
first-class importance, we like matters of comparative 
insignificance to be glorified with scare headlines. 
We indignantly deny, of course, that such an artifice 
can please us; but there are some respects in which 
the pressmen know our tastes better than we our- 
selves do. This is one of the tendencies of the time; 
but it is not the only one. For whilst, on the one 
hand, we like to see much made of little, we 
like, on the other, to see little made of much. 
We admire the woman who, taking a knuckle 
of veal or a shin of beef, makes with it a huge 
cauldron of soup; but we admire no less the woman 
who, with the same viand, makes a jelly that an 
invalid can hold in a wine-glass. 

Now it is not too much to say that, at this moment, 
the tabloid dominates the world. We glory in con- 
densed extracts. A neat stack of tins on the grocer’s 
counter represents a herd of oxen or a flock of sheep. 


208 The Crystal Pointers 


We buy a shoal of fish in a small bottle. Many of 
the necessities of commerce and many of the com- | 
modities of life are served up in tabloid form. In 
a vest-pocket we carry, side by side, the neat little 
phial that contains our food-tabloids and the neat 
little phial that coritains our medicine-tabloids. You 
can tell which is which by the labels! And so we 
make our way through life. We like everything 
boiled down. The joint must be reduced to a jelly. 
Like Champagne Shorder, one of Harold Begbie’s 
creations, we are infatuated by pocket editions. 

‘I can’t love anything that isn’t a pocket edition!’ 
Shorder exclaims, in the last chapter of The V igi. 
Shorder was himself a big, broad-faced man, and 
had the appearance of a generous and easy-living 
yeoman with a taste for horseflesh. 

‘I don’t know why it is,’ this big man said, in a 
burst of confidence, to Beatrice Haly. ‘I don’t know 
why it is, but ’m fond of all little things. I like 
little flowers. I like little hills. These Downs, for 
me, knock the Alps into a cocked hat. I’m in love 
with little Andrea. She’s worth all the rest of God’s 
universe to me. I can’t love anything that isn’t 
a pocket edition!’ 

This is excellent up to that point: the trouble is 
that it seldom stops at that. We indulge, not only 
in pocket editions, which are excellent, but in 
abridged editions, which are execrable. In the course 
of a fireside conversation the other evening, my 
companion happened to mention the Great Wall of 


Tabloids 209 


China. I casually remarked that the best description 
known to me of the Great Wall was Robinson Cru- 
soe’s. My friend imagined that he had misheard 
me. He had no idea, he said, that Robinson Crusoe 
travelled in China. He was the victim, of course, 
of an abridged edition. 

We take our politics in tabloid form nowadays. 
Fifty years ago, when a statesman addressed him- 
self to the magnificent problems of imperial adminis- 
tration, our fathers liked to unfold the paper next 
morning and to see the verbatim report running 
into half-a-dozen columns. Every word was eagerly 
devoured; and the arguments of the speech formed 
the staple fabric of the day’s conversation. We 
have improved upon—or receded from—that order 
of things. We like now to be told that the speaker 
arrived in a taxi; that he wore a grey suit; that 
a red carnation adorned his button-hole; that he 
emphasized his points by waving his pince-nez in his 
left hand; and that, on resuming his seat, he looked 
pale but gratified. Then having made this conces- 
sion to the dramatic, the spectacular—the Tableau 
Spirit—we proceed to do homage to the Spirit of the 
Tabloid. The account of what the speaker said 
must be rigorously epitomized. We want his epi- 
grams, his witticisms, his clever thrusts, and his 
salient points; but that is all. The oration must be 
boiled down. So closely do the Tableau Spirit and 
the Tabloid Spirit attend upon each other. 

The tabloid is a great public convenience. It is 


210 The Crystal Pointers 


an enormous boon to be able to carry an immense 
quantity of matter in an infinitesimal space. The 
art of making tabloids is well worth learning. In 
the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin—‘the man 
who wrested the sceptre from tyrants and the light- 
ning from heaven’—there is a story of a hatter who 
desired to place a signboard over his shop. He 
made out on a sheet of paper the words JOHN 
BROWN MAKES AND SELLS HATS FOR 
READY MONEY. Hethen asked a friend what he 
thought of it. ‘Oh,’ his friend replied, ‘cut out 
“MAKES AND”; nobody cares who makes the hat 
so long as it is good; and you might prefer, later 
on, to buy and sell.’ The sentence now read 
JOHN BROWN SELLS HATS FOR READY 
MONEY. He then consulted a second friend. 
‘Dear me!’ exclaimed this man, ‘why, this is an 
insult to the community! Ready money, indeed! 
Strike that out and it’s just the thing!’ The sen- 
tence then read JOHN BROWN SELLS HATS. 
He thereupon showed it to a third friend, who, on 
seeing it, burst into peals of laughter. ‘Absurd!’ 
he cried, ‘sells hats! Do you suppose people will 
expect you to give them away? You don’t need to 
say that they are for sale!’ Brown walked straight 
off to the sign-writer and ordered him to paint a 
board bearing the simple legend: JOHN BROWN: 
HATS. That told all that needed telling. The 
joint had become a jelly. The tabloid was com- 
plete! 


Tabloids 211 


But I can see that I am running into danger. 
Unless I am extremely careful I shall give the embar- 
rassing impression that I am hopelessly in love with 
the lady who reduces the joint to a jelly, and that 
I am totally blind to the charms of her sister, who 
makes from it a cauldron of soup. I wish to make 
no such invidious comparison. And certainly I do 
not wish to convey the idea that the Tableau Spirit 
is the villain, and the Tabloid Spirit the hero, of 
this screed of mine. I recognize fully the merits 
and demerits of each. The Tableau Spirit has its 
faults, of course, and they are glaring ones; but we 
must not forget that the Tabloid Spirit has its sins 
to answer for. I knew two men in New Zealand 
who, on a public holiday, set out on a walking tour. 
They hoped in the course of the day to cover about 
thirty miles. But, as they were leaving the beaten 
track, and penetrating the wilds, it was necessary to 
carry their provisions with them. When they met 
at the appointed time and place, the one looked at the 
other in surprise. He was empty-handed. 

‘Why,’ exclaimed Richardson, ‘you have brought 
nothing to eat! We shall be nowhere near boarding- 
houses or hotels, you know!’ 

‘Oh, I know,’ replied Nicholson, “but it’s an awful 
nuisance carrying food. I’ve brought a flask of 
tabloids in my pocket.’ He produced it. “Each of 
these,’ he continued, ‘is guaranteed to contain the 
nutriment of a pound of beef, so I shall be all right.’ 

All went well until midday. They found them- 


212 The Crystal Pointers 


selves on a hill-top overlooking the sea, and they sat 
in the shade of some manuka scrub for a spell. 
Nicholson bolted a tabloid; Richardson fancied that 
his companion eyed his own sandwiches a little envi- 
ously and passed them to him. Nicholson proudly 
declined them. He had eaten a pound of beef, he 
said, and a pound of beef is enough for any man. 

Tea-time found them at pretty much the same 
spot, on their return journey. They rested again. 
Again the sandwiches were offered. This time, 
however, they were accepted, and an interesting con- 
fession offered in payment. 

‘Thanks, I will,’ Nicholson exclaimed, taking a 
sandwich; ‘and I don’t mind telling you now that 
I’ve been as hungry as a hunter all day. I’ve slipped 
one of those tabloids into my mouth several times. 
I must have eaten half a bullock since lunch time. 
But I was never so famished in my life, and I’m 
glad you brought a good supply!’ 

Nicholson’s experience represents the collapse of 
the tabloid. There is a place in this world for joints 
as well as jellies. There is something to be said for 
bulk. I have often felt that the older school of 
novelists had mastered that secret. They knew 
what they were doing when they wrote big books. 
To us, accustomed as we are to large type, thick 
pages and ample margins, those ponderous tomes 
appear forbidding. A three-volume novel requires 
courage. We hesitate to embark upon a thousand 
pages. But the men who wrote those books knew 


Tabloids 213 


their business. The most fascinating heroine of a 
short story can never sweep you off your feet. It 
is a case of How-do-ye-do? and Good-bye! She 
glides into our lives and out again before we have 
come to feel at home with her. But Fielding and 
Smollett and Dickens and Thackeray knew a deeper 
cunning. They knew that the man who writes a little 
book—the man who contributes to the tabloid order 
of literature—must resort to desperate stratagems in 
seeking to win our affection for his creations. He 
must make his hero and his heroine, during the brief 
period for which they hold our attention, do all 
sorts of wonderful and beautiful and glorious things. 
Whilst it lasts, the spectacle is positively dazzling, 
but it does not last long. One has but to take a 
bird’s-eye view of his own experience in order to 
convince himself that the people who win our hearts 
are seldom people of this meteoric kind. The older 
novelists—the men who wrote the big books—knew 
that there is a fondness that arises from familiarity. 
We become attached to people through being so long 
in their company. We even learn to love inani- 
mate objects for the same reason. A house in which 
we have long lived; a street through which we have 
daily walked; a tree beneath whose kindly shade we 
have often rested; a cup that we have always used; 
a stick that we have constantly carried; a pipe that 
we have regularly smoked: we all know the poign- 
ancy of grief that attends our severance from such 
priceless things. To pass from the heroine of the 


214 The Crystal Pointers 


short story to the heroine of the big novel is like 
passing from an arc-light to a candlestick. But you 
get fond of the candlestick that you have carried 
to your room, night after night, for years. And, in 
the same way, you learn to love the flesh and blood 
heroes and heroinés of the old-fashioned novels, and 
cherish their memories in your heart for ever after- 
wards, through having spent so many hours in their 
society. After the short story you feel as Nicholson 
felt after swallowing tabloids; after the big novel 
you feel as he felt on sharing his companion’s 
sandwiches, 

Tableau or Tabloid? I should like a little of both. 
That is why I am heart and soul with Champagne 
Shorder in his glorification of the pocket edition. 
For the beauty of the pocket edition is that it 
eschews the vices, and combines the virtues, of both 
the Tableau Spirit and the Tabloid Spirit. It is 
like the tabloid in its compactness, yet the bulk is 
there; and, as you turn the pages, the whole stupen- 
dous drama passes before you. The paper is so 
fine, and the type so neat, and the binding so dainty, 
that it has been possible to print every word of the 
masterpiece in a book that will slip into your pocket. 

The universe in which we live is a neat little 
phial of tabloids. ‘I believe,’ says Walt Whitman— 


I believe a leaf of grass is no less than a journey-work of 
the stars, 

And the pismire is equally perfect, and the grain of sand, 
and the egg of the wren, 

And the tree-toad is a chef-d’cevre for the highest, 


Tabloids 25 


And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of 
Heaven, 

And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all 
machinery, 

And the cow, crunching with depressed head, surpasses any 
stature, 


And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of 
infidels. 


Therein lies the wonder of all really wonderful 
things. An acorn is a wonderful thing; it is a pocket 
edition of a forest. Space is a wonderful thing; it 
is the tabloid of infinity. Time is a wonderful thing ; 
it is the tabloid of eternity. The Bible is a wonder- 
ful thing; it is a pocket edition of the thought of 
God. <A baby is a wonderful thing; it is a pocket 
edition of everything. And more even than any of 
these, the Christian life is a wonderful thing. And 
its real wonder arises from the fact that it is a pocket 
edition of the highest life of all. A Christian life 
is the reproduction of the stately idyll of the four 
Gospels, just as this neat little pocket edition on my 
desk is a representation of the three bulky volumes 
at the public library. 


Though Christ a thousand times 
In Bethlehem be born, 

If He’s not born in thee 
Thy soul is all forlorn. 


The Cross on Calvary 
Will never save thy soul; 
Thy Cross in thine own heart 
Alone can make thee whole! 


That is the point. The Christ-child is born afresh; 
and the heart is the inn; and the angels sing again 
as they sang in the fields of Bethlehem; and shep- 


216 The Crystal Pointers 


herds and sages come once more to see the wonder 
that has come to pass. And, in that same soul, all 
the miracles are repeated; blindness vanishes; song 
visits dumb lips; deafness yields to the hearing of 
unutterable things; leprosy departs and death 
trembles into life. In the same soul there is a 
Garden of Gethsemane and a betrayal by means of 
a kiss. And ‘in that soul there is a Cross with all 
its horror, its shame, its anguish and its everlast- 
ing triumph. And all men gaze upon that life with 
wonder, for they know that it is a pocket edition of 
the glory ineffable. And they feel, instinctively but 
confidently, that that glory can be revealed to men in 
no lovelier or more intelligible way. 


TV 
OLIVER SPREADBURY 


Poor Oliver Spreadbury! Everybody pokes fun at 
him. That—combined with the fact that the post- 
man has just handed me a fourteen-page letter in 
his handwriting—is why I have this morning dedi- 
cated my pen to his defence. Oliver’s only weakness 
—if it be a weakness—is a fondness for being first. 
There is a terrible tradition to the effect that, when 
he was a very small boy, he and his classmates 
agreed, after Sunday School, to play at being in 
Heaven. The scheme collapsed, however, in the 
process of allotting the parts. Oliver made it per- 
fectly clear that, if he couldn’t be God, he wouldn't 
play at all. He is now residing at Castlewood; and, 
in the course of his long letter, he gives me to under- 
stand that the local magnates are mere puppets; it is 
he who pulls the strings. The local editors, minis- 
ters, and public officials are guided by his wishes and 
commands. 

Oliver Spreadbury has set me thinking. The 
most vital opinion that a man ever forms is his 
opinion of himself. It is therefore essential that a 
man should think accurately of himself. We are in 
a good deal of confusion at this point. The Church 


217 


218 The Crystal Pointers 


has for ages taught, and the world has for ages 
believed, that there is some mysterious virtue in 
thinking that two and two make three, and some 
hideous vice in supposing that they make five. Or, 
to drop the language of hyperbole and to adopt the 
phraseology of fact, the Church has taught, and the 
world has believed, that it is an evil thing for a man 
to think too highly of himself and an excellent thing 
for him to think too meanly of himself. The theory 
is absurd. The fallacy must be exploded. In jus- 
tice to Oliver Spreadbury, I repudiate it root and 
branch. A man should think justly of himself. It 
is just as great a mistake to say that two and two 
make three as to say that they make five. It is just 
as serious a defect for a man to think too little of 
himself as to think too much. Indeed, in presenting 
my case for Oliver Spreadbury, I am prepared to 
argue that, of the two, the man who thinks too little 
of himself is the greater menace to the general good. 
There is something to be said for the Scotsman who 
mingled with his supplications a petition in which 
he craved a guid conceit o’ himsel’. 

We are always forming opinions of other people. 
We do it automatically. We even do it whilst we 
sleep. We meet a man overnight; we form only a 
blurred and confused impression of him; we go to 
bed; and, on waking in the morning, we find our- 
selves possessed of a clear-cut estimate of the char- 
acter of our new acquaintance. With the greatest 
ease we form our opinions of the people about us. 


Oliver Spreadbury 219 


But a man’s impressions of other people do not affect 
his character and conduct as profoundly as do his 
impressions of himself. And, strangely enough, our 
judgments of ourselves are not so easily formed. 
Such opinions do not come involuntarily. The auto- 
matic opinion-forming machine that we all carry 
within our breasts has its limitations. It differen- 
tiates sharply between our opinions of other people 
and our opinions of ourselves. If we desire a. just 
estimate of our own personalities, we must take 
some pains to weigh the evidence and form one. 
And, since the effort demands some pains, most of us 
neglect it. But our neglect does not affect in the 
slightest degree the stern fact that the most vital 
opinion that a man ever forms is his opinion of 
himself. | 

Very few of us treat ourselves with courtesy. We 
hold ourselves at arm’s length, Many a man 
behaves towards himself as though he and himself 
had never been introduced. He is awkward and shy 
in his own society. He eyes himself furtively as he 
would eye the strange and solitary companion who 
occupies the opposite corner of a railway compart- 
ment. He does not know what to make of him- 
self, He is at no pains to cultivate his own acquain- 
tance. He never wishes himself a jovial Good- 
morning on waking; he never has a good laugh with 
himself in the course of the day; he never says atl 
encouraging word to himself when things are going 
badly; he never shakes hands with himself or pats 


220 The Crystal Pointers 


himself on the back when things are going well. He 
simply tolerates himself. He sees as little of him- 
self as possible. His attitude towards himself is 
one of strict neutrality. He would not get the best 
out of a horse or a dog if he treated it in such a 
way; how, then, can he hope, under such impossible 
conditions, to get the best out of himself ? 

It is in our conversation that we betray our ignor- 
ance. That explains the rigid restraint that some 
of us place upon our tongues when we find ourselves 
at the fireside. We know that, in the breasts of our 
companions, the automatic opinion-forming machines 
are all at work. We can almost hear them clicking. 
As long as we are as silent as the Sphinx we may 
beguile those mechanical monitors into the delusion 
that we are as wise as Solon. A little speech would 
shatter that pleasing fantasy. As long as men say 
nothing about themselves, you suspect that they have 
taken the pains to form a just estimate of them- 
selves; but, nine times out of ten, when men speak 
of themselves, they prove conclusively their complete 
ignorance of the theme with which they are dealing. 
A man may speak of himself in terms of adulation 
or in terms of abuse; we are not deceived. The 
automatic machines continue to register accurately. 
Fle may adopt the accent of self-esteem or self- 
depreciation; it matters little; we feel instinctively 
that we are listening to a man who is by no means 
master of his subject. 

The language of conceit is seldom dangerous— 


Oliver Spreadbury 221 


to the listener. Like a traction-engine, it is invar- 
iably preceded by a red flag. Before the vain 
sentence is uttered, there is something about the 
speaker that warns you that the statement that he is 
about to make is not altogether reliable. It is as 
though a policeman stepped into your shop to tell you 
that the man coming down the street would probably 
tender you counterfeit currency. You are ready for 
him when he enters; you test the coin as soon as he 
offers it; and you are not surprised to find that 
it does not ring true. The man who, in talking 
to us about himself, adopts this tone, seldom mis- 
leads us. Like the novelist, he is good enough 
to write “4 Romance’ across his title-page before 
he starts. 

Self-depreciation, however, is slightly more per- 
plexing. Only slightly. For no man who speaks 
disparagingly of himself is to be implicitly trusted. 
He is sincere or he is not. Does he honestly desire 
that we should accept his self-detraction at its face 
value? Does he really wish us to think the less of 
him, to deny him the confidence that we have hith- 
erto reposed in him, and to regard him henceforth 
as unworthy of our affection and esteem? Ina 
word, would he be pleased if we told him frankly 
that we agreed with him? If not, he is insincere ; 
and there is no more to be said. He is attempting 
to compass some ulterior end; or else, like Uriah 
Heep, he is seeking to win for himself a spurious 
reputation for humility. If, on the other hand, he 


222 The Crystal Pointers 


1g Sincere, we are driven to the conclusion that he is 
not quite well. Noman of healthy body and healthy 
mind deliberately sets himself to earn the contempt 
or distrust of his fellows. In either case, when the 
conversation takes this turn, it is time that the party 
broke up. Things have reached a dead-end ; progress 
is impossible. 

All the conventions to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing, every man should have a good opinion of 
himself. It should, of course, be, approximately 
at least, a just opinion; but it should be a good 
opinion. In every club, congregation, and com- 
munity, there are three classes of people. The first 
class, comprising, perhaps, one per cent. of the 
people, consists of those who have taken the trouble 
to form a just estimate of their own character and 
value. The second class, comprising, let us say, 
nineteen per cent. of the people, consists of those 
who have formed too high an opinion of themselves. 
And the third class, comprising the remaining eighty 
per cent. of the people, consists of those who have 
formed too mean an estimate of their own worth. 
Of these three classes, the third presents by far the 
greatest problem. For these people—the overwhelm- 
ing majority—are paralysed! 

Yes, they are paralysed by disesteem. Every 
minister knows exactly what I mean. As he surveys 
his congregation he sees a few people of the Oliver 
Spreadbury type. Clearly, they think too highly of 
themselves. But, as a rule, these people do some- 


Oliver Spreadbury 223 


thing. The inflated estimate that they set upon their 
own importance tends to thrust them into a certain 
prominence. Pride leads to activity. Look at Oliver 
Spreadbury! You could not keep him out of office 
with a set of chains or a cart rope. In his fourteen- 
page letter he tells me of all the positions that he 
holds in the public life of Castlewood. He is Presi- 
dent of this and Secretary of that and Captain of 
the other. And, when the world has so much work 
waiting to be done, one views with tolerance any 
factor—however conspicuous its dishgurements— 
that sets in motion hands that would otherwise be 
idle. The people, as I shall presently show, are not 
the best workers, either in Church or State, but they 
are workers whose services are by no means to be 
despised. 

The people who think too poorly of themselves— 
the eighty per cent.—are, for the most part, idlers. 
They are lookers-on. They share no activities and 
shoulder no responsibilities. And why? The reason 
is perfectly simple. These people do not mean to 
shirk their duty. They have convinced themselves 
that it is not within the compass of their powers 
to render effective service to Church or State. IH 
you can wheedle them into attempting some small 
task they will be both astonished and delighted at 
discovering that they are not so helpless as they had 
supposed. 

The Church has an awkward knack of struggling 
with life’s smaller problems and neglecting the larger 


224 The Crystal Pointers 


ones. We have exhausted the entire battery of 
vituperation and denunciation on the few unfor- 
tunates who, like Oliver Spreadbury, have formed 
too exalted an opinion of themselves; and we have 
said nothing and done nothing towards grappling 
with the other problem. Yet that other problem is 
far more acute. The people who think too highly 
of themselves have a way, sooner or later, of bump- 
ing their heads against the stars; the stern discipline 
of life moderates their swollen self-esteem; some- 
thing of the kind will happen to Oliver Spreadbury 
one of these days. But the people who think too 
poorly of themselves are seldom cured. They drift 
through life aimlessly and helplessly. In their ears 
a great cry is constantly ringing—the cry of those 
in need; but so paralysed are all their powers that 
it does not occur to them that they have it in them 
to bless their fellow men. After all, our wealth 
consists, not so much in our possessions, as in 
our knowledge of our possessions. We are not 
really rich unless we know that we are rich. In 
the same way, we are not really strong unless we 
know that we are strong. To be of any use to the 
world, a man must not only be able to do things; he 
must know that he is able to do them. 

I said just now that the people whose exaggerated 
self-appreciation pushes them into positions of 
prominence are not the world’s best workers. They 
have their value, but it is not a superlative value. 
Oliver Spreadbury covers a good deal of ground, yet 


Oliver Spreadbury 225 


he does not get very far. His restless activity does 
not count for much. He does not make the Church 
attractive to those who know him. He does not 
make religion lovable. The aristocracy of human 
service is made up of a select company gathered out 
of all three of the classes that I just now enumerated. 
There are a few who have correctly assessed their 
own worth and have devoted themselves to tasks 
commensurate with their powers. There are a few 
who, once upon a time, thought too highly of them- 
selves, but who have been humbled and sweetened 
by disaster. And there are a few who, once upon a 
time, thought too meanly of themselves, but who 
have learned to their delight that they possess talents 
which, in the old days, they never for a moment 
suspected. It is by these people, gathered from all 
three classes, that the work of the world and of the 
Church is being done. 

There are loud sins and silent sins. There are 
sins that proclaim themselves and sins that conceal 
themselves. The sins of the people who think too 
much of themselves are showy sins; the sins of the 
people who think too little of themselves are subtle 
sins; but they are sins none the less. The heresy 
that there is something admirable in saying that 
two and two make three; the heresy that there 1s 
some mysterious virtue in self-depreciation, leads 
to a great and bitter evil. It leads men, perhaps 
unconsciously, to deal with themselves too severely ; 
and a man has no more right to deal too harshly with 


226 The Crystal Pointers 


himself than he has to deal too harshly with others. 
The evil has endless ramifications. Along one line 
it leads to the wretchedness of asceticism. Thus, 
I find the saintly Dr. Pusey calling himself a monster 
and a leper; wearing haircloth next his skin; scourg- 
ing himself until the blood flows; selecting the foods 
that are most distasteful to him and drinking noth- 
ing but cold water as a reminder that he was only 
fit to dwell where no drop would cool the eternal 
flame. Obviously, he is too hard on himself. Along 
another line, the heresy leads to strange and fan- 
tastic repudiations.. I have known an honored min- 
ister, towards the close of a powerful and fruitful 
life-work, to declare in a morbid moment that he 
himself was a hypocrite, and that his whole ministry 
was a structure of wood, hay and stubble which 
the testing flames would swiftly consume. ‘When 
I went to America to convert the Indians,’ says 
John Wesley, in the early pages of his Journal, ‘I 
was not myself converted.’ But, years afterwards, 
he writes against the entry: ‘I am not sure of this.’ 
Fle evidently felt that, in a moment of deep depres- 
sion or strong emotion, a man may easily judge him- 
self far too severely. 

Tan Maclaren has told, with characteristic tender- 
ness, the story of Andrew Harris of Rochdale. 
Andrew had been for many years a member of the 
church at Thorngreen. He was universally honored 
and beloved. But nothing would persuade him to 
accept office. At sength, however, he went away 


Oliver Spreadbury 227 


for a holiday, and, in his absence, was unanimously 
elected. After a while came the night for hearing 
objections. When the beadle, according to custom, 
went to the door and called into the darkness for 
objection to the name of Andrew Harris, Andrew 
himself stepped in. He told how, in his youth, he 
had committed a great sin. He had repented and 
obtained the forgiveness of God and man, and had 
fully compensated and satisfied those whom he had 
injured. But he felt that his life was clouded. 
‘There’s a man I envy every day,’ he said, ‘and mair 
the nicht than ever; not the rich and powerful; 
na, na; it is the man whose life is clear. The hands 
must be clean that bear the vessels of the Lord, 
and these hands are not clean; wherefore I take 
objection, being a true witness, against the life of 
Andrew Harris, and declare he is not fit to be an 
elder of the kirk!’ 

Andrew Harris reminds me of Victoria Sampson. 
The old lady was one of the sweetest and saint- 
liest characters I have ever met. Her exemplary 
life and beautiful unselfishness were an inspiration 
and a rebuke to us all. But she would not join the 
Church. When I mentioned the matter to her, her 
lips quivered and she burst into tears. 

‘No, no,’ she sobbed, ‘that can never be! You 
do not know me! My heart is a cage of unclean 
birds. It is deceitful, deceitful above all things 
and desperately wicked! And she swayed to and 
fro in her grief. And thus, to our sorrow, we make 


228 The Crystal Pointers 


His love too narrow with false limits of our own 
and we magnify His strictness with a zeal He will 
not own. We slam in our faces the doors that 
the everlasting mercy had widely opened. 


V 
THE POISONED SPRING 


I 


Tue authorities at Jericho felt that a man who 
could do things by magic would represent a distinct 
acquisition to the life of the city. They therefore 
welcomed Elisha with open arms. They regarded 
him pretty much as the Mayor and Corporation of 
Hamelin Town regarded the Pied Piper. In neither 
case did the civic rulers know anything—or care 
anything—concerning the source of the visitor’s 
inspiration. All that they knew was that they had 
their local pests and problems. Pests and problems 
can, in the ordinary way, only be conquered by hard 
thinking and hard working. In the ordinary way. 
But the Pied Piper’s way was not the ordinary 
way. Nor was Elisha’s. In the arrival of the magi- 
cians, the aldermen—in each of these cases—saw 
the possibility of a short cut to the attainment of 
very desirable ends. Hamelin was infested by rats. 
To rid a city of such troublesome vermin is 
extremely difficult. It involves a campaign skilfully 
conceived and vigorously executed. But when it 
seemed that the Pied Piper’s wondrous lute could 
whisk the rats away by magic, the aldermen began 


229 


230 The Crystal Pointers 


to feel that life was worth living. They had dis- 
covered a labor-saving device such as none of them 
had ever dreamed of. The authorities at Jericho 
enjoyed a similar experience. They were having 
trouble with the water supply. The city was flour- 
ishing, and the country behind it was a picture of 
agricultural prosperity. The cattle were almost 
buried in the long rich grass; the valleys luxuriated 
in the picturesque vesture of their fruitful orchards 
and neatly kept plantations; the terraces along the 
slopes were draped by the ample foliage of olives, 
vines, and balsams; the crests were crowned by the 
graceful fronds of ten thousand palm trees; and the 
air was loaded with the perfume of roses and made 
musical by the humming of the bees. The city 
rejoiced in this abounding prosperity; and, but for 
one drawback, Jericho would have been the hap- 
piest of thirty royal cities of Canaan. The waters 
were tainted! That was the crook in Jericho’s lot! 
That was the fly in the ointment! The waters were 
tainted! The waters were tainted! 


II 


One of these days I shall be appointed to preach 
a Municipal sermon of some kind. I can almost feel 
the great day coming. The church will be crowded 
with mayors and aldermen. When the occasion 
comes, my subject will be ready. I shall preach on 
the perplexities of the aldermen at Jericho. ‘Behold, 
they cried to Elisha, as they gazed in astonishment 


The Poisoned Spring 231 


at the wonders that accompanied his ordination to 
the prophetic office, ‘behold, the situation of this city 
is pleasant, but the waters are tainted! There lies 
the trouble! 

Life is based on its simplicities. Everything 
depends on the water. In his Wild Life in a South- 
ern County, Richard Jefferies says that if, in certain 
parts of England, a visitor were to follow the water- 
courses, keeping to the banks of stream and rill 
and river, he would suppose that England is a 
densely populated country; but if he were carefully 
to avoid the watered valleys and were to keep to the 
back country, he would come to a diametrically oppo- 
site conclusion. The reason is that the people flock 
to the streams. 

And the stream is the pride of the city. The 
inhabitants of the grimy towns love, on occasions, 
to visit its upper reaches. There its serpentine folds 
are flanked by green banks on which the wild flowers 
twinkle, and are draped by graceful willows in which 
the thrushes sing. The kingfisher sits on a low 
bough, admiring his radiant image reflected in the 
mirror below him; whilst the coot and the moorhen 
dart in and out among the reeds and rushes. Or, 
even as, in office and workroom, the people pursue 
their ordinary avocations, they like to catch glimpses 
of the broad sheet of water, spanned by many 
bridges, as it winds in and out among the streets 
and warehouses of the busy town. Further down, 
the river is a scene of bustling activity. Wharves 


232 The Crystal Pointers 


and quays jut out into its waters; huge sheds filled 
with merchandise, and stores packed with produce 
line both banks; and great ships glide in and out like 
monstrous shuttles that, in passing to and fro, weave 
the life of the city into the life of the world beyond. 
Viewed under each of these phases, the stream is 
a source of constant pride to the citizens; they con- 
duct their visitors to eminences that command a 
good view of its tortuous course; and they feel that, 
deprived of it, their city would seem strangely poor. 
There, then, flows the stream—the glory of the 
city—the natural representative of all those beauti- 
fying, satisfying, fertilizing forces that, to its vast 
enrichment, pour themselves through human life. 


III 


But our streams tend to become tainted; and the 
tainted stream means a stricken city. One of our 
most eminent historians has traced the rise of the 
City of London from the time when elephants and 
hippopotami crashed through the jungle that occu- 
pied the site of the Strand down to the coronation 
of his Majesty the King. He shows how, genera- 
tion after generation, the population has grown by 
leaps and bounds. But he shows something else. 
He shows that, for centuries, the population only 
increased through the inrush to the city of the 
people from the country. Through more than five 
hundred years the deaths enormously exceeded the 
births. And why? He attributed it entirely to Lon- 


The Poisoned Spring 233 


don’s tainted water. However pure the stream may 
be at its fountain-head, it tends to become polluted 
in the course of its flow. The loveliest things in 
life are exposed to the same peril. Literature, music, 
art, sport, religion—they are noble streams, but they 
are easily poisoned. Unless some filtrating and puri- 
fying agency is constantly at work, contamination is 
inevitable. Let anyone who cares to do so examine 
the literature, the music, the art, the sport, and the 
religion of the empires of antiquity, or of the pagan 
peoples of to-day, and he will quickly recognize the 
tendency to taint. Even the temples are the abodes 
of cruelty and the shrines of uncleanness. The love- 
liest stream of all—the stream of worship—has 
become foul. And when a people’s devotion is sul- 
lied, its culture, however pretentious and ornate, 
soon becomes abominable. ‘Behold, the situation of 
this city is pleasant, but the waters are tainted.’ The 
people felt that, as long as that was so, nothing was 
secure. 


IV 


I do not know exactly by what witchery of 
alchemy Elisha cleansed the tainted stream. ‘Bring 
me a new cruse, he said, ‘and put salt therein” And 
he went forth unto the spring of the waters and cast 
the salt in there and said, ‘Thus saith the Lord, 1 
have healed these waters! Something of the same 
kind happens every day. The rivers of the world 
run down to the sea, bearing with them the pollution 


234 The Crystal Pointers 


of the cities through which they flow. And the sea 
is salt. Its saltness is the salvation of humanity. 
If the sea were to lose its saltness, the earth would 
instantly become uninhabitable. The salt, salt sea 
receives the tainted rivers, and, by its saltness, they 
are sweetened and purified and healed. He who 
holds the sea in the hollow of His hand says every 
day as Elisha said at Jericho, ‘Thus saith the Lord, 
I have healed these waters! And the sunshine gath- 
ers the moisture back into the skies; and the clouds 
distil it on the upland hills; and the springs of the 
valley welcome it as it again trickles down the slopes; 
and, once more clear as crystal and sparklingly pure, 
it sets off with a song to satisfy, refresh, and cleanse 
the hot and thirsty city. Again, as it sweeps through 
the land, it becomes tainted; and again, as it plunges 
into the sea, it becomes cleansed; and so the cycle 
continues everlastingly. 


V 


The one point that I shall have to make clear in 
that Municipal sermon of mine will be the practical 
one. ‘The waters can only be cleansed by addition: 
they can never be cleansed by subtraction. In order 
to heal the tainted stream, Elisha threw something 
into it; he did not attempt to take anything out of it. 
Flis behavior in that respect is intensely significant. 
I have often seen prophets attempting to cleanse the 
fountains of a city’s life. They have usually failed: 
and they have failed because they relied too much 


The Poisoned Spring 235 


upon a principle of subtraction. ‘They attacked tls; 
they condemned that; they denounced the other. 
With hot hearts and angry eyes they said that this 
was wrong and that that was wrong; that our men 
ought not to do this and our women ought not to do 
that. They rebuked us, exposed us, denounced us; 
but, for all their vehemence and passion, they did not 
heal us! You cannot cure a patient by enlarging, 
in grim and ghastly detail, on the loathsomeness of 
his disease. He needs a positive prescription. You 
cannot save a city by scolding it. You cannot purify 
the streams of public life by taking out the things 
that defile; you must pour into the hearts and minds 
of the people some gracious and potent influence that 
will sweeten and strengthen and save. I often think 
admiringly of John Keble. As he walked amidst 
the cowslips and the buttercups of the Gloucester- 
shire village in which he was curate, he worried about 
the world. But how could he right its wrongs? 
Then, like Elisha, he wondered if he could throw 
some cleansing influence into its tainted waters. He 
poured all the sweetness of his soul into a volume 
of verse. He published it anonymously under the 
title of The Christian Year. It was the very thing 
that England needed. It sold in scores of thousands 
of copies, and the stream of the nation’s life was 
healed. ; 

I find it difficult to write in this strain without 
recalling Leonard Prendergast. Leonard was an 
excellent fellow. I knew him first as a student at the 


236 The Crystal Pointers 


university. He afterwards married and settled at 
Swinton, and became an officer of the Church there. 
But things went sadly with him. The business that 
he bought turned out to be a much poorer affair 
than it had been represented to be; and he con- 
sidered that his predecessor—also a church member 
~——had swindled him. Then his wife’s health broke 
down and she was for many months an invalid; and, 
just as she began to give promise of better things, 
their little boy died. During this long and bitter 
experience, Leonard felt that the people at the 
Church were less sympathetic than they should have 
been, and his censure was probably just. He for- 
got that each individual in the congregation had 
sorrows and worries of his own; he forgot, too, that 
people always feel more sympathy than they express. 
He made no allowances; and, as a result, the expe- 
rience soured him. He gradually withdrew from 
church life altogether. He still attends, at least 
occasionally. But, in conversation, he speaks acidly 
of all Churches. He loves to expatiate upon their 
coldness, their insensibility, their indifference. With 
pitiless analysis, he exposes the weaknesses of eccle- 
siastical life and lays bare all its least attractive traits. 
I would give a good deal to have Leonard in my 
congregation when I preach my sermon to mayors 
and aldermen. He would see that criticism, to be 
of value, must be constructive. If he really desires 
to transform the Church as it is into the Church of 
his ideal, he can only do it by pouring something 


The Poisoned Spring 237 


from his life into its life; he will never do it by 
taking something out. 


VI 


As I survey from the pulpit the faces of the City 
Fathers, I shall be tempted to turn from matters 
of public policy to matters of private life. There 
is the science of friendships, for example; always 
an alluring theme. ‘Have you a friend?’ I shall 
enquire, warming to that phase of my subject, ‘have 
you a friend? And does that friend of yours, in 
certain respects, disappoint you? He occasionally 
says things and does things that grate upon you. 
He proves himself to be something other and some- 
thing less than you would wish your friend to be. 
What then? Are you on that account to pick holes 
in him, to forget his excellences and magnify his 
vices? The best way of showing that a stick is 
crooked is to lay a straight one beside it. Be to 
your friend what you would wish him to be to you! 
Depend upon it, the traits that you deplore are symp- 
toms of a struggle in his soul of which you know 
little or nothing. Pour into his life some warm, 
enriching, uplifting influence; it will make all the 
difference to him. It is only by adding something 
to the tainted waters that you can effectively cleanse 
them!’ | 

Having got as far as this, I shall probably go a 
step further. I shall come to close grips. I shall 
remind myself that I have to deal, not only with 


238 The Crystal Pointers 


the mayor but with the man. He will be a mayor 
for twelve brief months: he will be a man to all 
eternity. Underneath the robes and chains of office 
is a throbbing human soul. Shall I allow the honors 
with which these good men have been invested, and 
the dignities to which they have been called, to 
deprive them of the richest treasures that I, as a 
minister, can dispense? For shame! ‘Gentlemen,’ 
I shall say, “you each know your own hearts. You 
know that life is a great problem, a perpetual 
struggle, the highest of the high arts. You know, 
too, better than your most severe critics can tell 
you, your own failings. You each know, as nobody 
but you yourself can possibly know, the extent to 
which the stream of your life has become tainted. 
You have tried to cleanse it by taking out one thing 
and by giving up another. You have endeavored 
to check this habit and to break that one. Gentle- 
men, I welcome you to this church this morning 
that I may tell you that you can never heal the 
tainted waters by subtraction; you must heal them — 
by addition. The prophet added the cleansing sub- 
stance to the poisoned fountains. You need, not 
something less, but something more— 


vil 


And, from that point to the closing sentence, I 
shall have no difficulties at all. I shail be moving 
among the sublime simplicities of the everlasting 
Gospel. I shall forget all about Elisha. For there 


The Poisoned Spring 239 


is only one Prophet, who, standing at the tainted 
springs of human experience, can cast the contents 
of His cruse into the poisoned waters and sweeten 
all their flow. And to Him—the first and the last 
of the Prophets—all the other prophets bear witness. 


VI 
KISS rS 


CONSCIENCE, according to Hamlet, makes cowards 
of us all. So do kisses. At least, they have made 
a coward of me. Ten years ago I took the foolscap 
sheet on which it is my custom to set down the 
subjects on which I have it in my heart to write, 
and, in a bold hand, I added the word Kisses to the 
list. But it is a ticklish topic. The Church very 
early found herself in trouble over it. In their 
epistles, Peter and Paul repeatedly urged the Chris- 
tians of their time to greet one another with a kiss; 
but, within a century or two, the dignitaries of the 
Church appear to have wished that the apostolic 
writers had confined their attention to matters a 
little more doctrinal and a little less delicate. “The 
shameless use of the kiss,’ says Clement of Alex- 
andria—and one can almost see his wry face as he 
says it—‘the shameless use of the kiss, which ought 
to be mystic, occasions foul suspicions and evil 
reports.’ Who then can wonder at my prolonged 
hesitation? JI am on the horns of a dilemma. How 
can I pretend to have dealt with human life with 
any reasonable measure of completeness if, wil- 
fully and deliberately, I have shirked the subject 
of kisses? And yet, if I venture upon the alluring 


240 


————— 





Kisses 241 


theme, what am I to say? Shall I write sympatheti- 
cally, approvingly, even glowingly? The experi- 
ences of the Apostles rise before me and seem to be 
waving warning hands. Shall I write coldly, 
reproachfully, censoriously?. For shame! How 
could I? 

There, then, is the difficulty, and it is great 
enough, in all conscience. Because of its magnitude 
the years have come and gone; the foolscap sheet 
has been consulted hundreds of times; the topics 
above the word and the topics below it have all 
been dealt with long ago; it alone of the many 
themes suggested remains uncancelled. I can 
endure that silent reproof no longer. To-day—not 
without special reason—I address myself at last to 
the tantalizing subject of kisses. 

It happens to be my Silver Wedding Day; but 
that 1s not the special reason to which I refer; for, 
obviously, that has nothing to do with it. The 
special reason arises from the experiences of yester- 
day. I saw yesterday, more clearly than I had ever 
seen before, how very human an affair a kiss really 
is. We had been invited—my wife and I—to visit 
some friends whose beautiful home is perched up 
among the fern-clad hills, some distance out of town. 
I resolved to call, on the way, on old Mrs. Field— 
Fieldie, as she called herself and as we always 
called her—whom I knew to be very ill. I found 
on arrival that she was much worse than I had sup- 
posed. Her daughter came on tiptoe to the door, 


242 The Crystal Pointers 


opened it silently, and raised her finger admonish- 
ingly, as she welcomed me. 

“You’re just in time,’ she said, as I accompanied 
her to the sick room, ‘Fieldie’s nearly through!’ 

She was very old; she had lived a life of singular 
sweetness and gentleness and charm; her end was 
like the falling asleep of a tired child. As I ap- 
proached the bedside, I took her hand and repeated, 
slowly and softly, one or two very familiar passages 
of Scripture. She recognized my voice, opened her 
eyes, and looked up with a weary but pleasant smile. 
I prayed, very briefly, and I saw her lips form a 
murmured Amen. I attempted to release my hand, 
but her thin fingers held it, and I noticed that her 
lips were moving again. I immediately inclined my 
ear to her face. 

‘Kiss me!’ she whispered. I reverently touched 
her forehead with my lips; it seemed such a perfectly 
natural thing to do; she released my hand on the 
instant; and I quietly left the room. An hour later 
she was at rest. 

But, by the time that she had passed away, we 
had reached our destination up among the hills. 
Our hostess had invited one or two guests to meet us. 
Among them was Miss Langlands, the matron of the 
Hillcrest Hospital. I soon discovered that her whole 
soul was in her work, and that it was no breach 
of good taste to talk to her about patients and doc- 
tors and nurses. 

‘’m feeling a little sad this evening,’ she said, 


Kisses 243 


‘for we lost to-day one of our favorite patients. 
And, by the way,’ she added, ‘something very pretty 
happened in connection with the case. I think it 
will interest you. I must tell you all about it.’ And 
she drew her chair nearer mine so that we formed 
a group apart from the rest of the company: 

‘He was only a little boy of five when he first came 
to us, seven years ago,’ she went on, ‘and we knew 
from the first that his case was hopeless. The 
wonder is that he lasted so long. He was just 
a waif. We were never able to trace his parentage 
or to find any of his relations. He told us that his 
name was Bennie; and that was all he seemed to 
know. He was a quiet, thoughtful little chap; he 
was pleased if you noticed him, yet he never hank- 
ered after company; he would sit in a corner of the 
ward and amuse himself for hours. 

‘A few months ago a new nurse came to Hillcrest 
—Sister Rose. She is a pretty girl, of fine figure 
and high color. She is brimful of life and spirits; 
her laugh rings through the wards like a peal of 
bells. Some of the older nurses consider her too 
giddy and frivolous, but I see nothing wrong with 
her, and all her patients like her. 

‘One morning, about ten days ago, I was going 
round the wards as usual, when, on entering the 
Clifford Ward, Bennie came smiling from his corner 
to meet me. 

‘““Why, Bennie,” I exclaimed, “whatever’s the 
matter? You look wonderfully happy this morning!” 


244 The Crystal Pointers 


‘“T am, Matron,” he said; and then, partly cran- 
ing up and partly pulling me down, he whispered, 
“Sister Rose kissed me this morning; nobody ever 
kissed me before!” 

‘T really believe that he lived on that kiss for sev- 
eral days. His face would light up with sudden recol- 
lection, and we guessed what he was thinking about. 

‘He collapsed all at once on Sunday and died in 
his sleep early this morning. It has worried me all 
day to think that his would have to be a pauper 
burial; but, just as I was putting on my hat and 
coat to come up here, Sister Rose came to my room 
to say that she would like Bennie to be buried at her 
expense. I felt as if a great weight had been lifted 
from my mind. I thought it was lovely of her. I 
was so pleased, both for her sake and for Bennie’s.’ 

And so, twice in an afternoon, I was reminded of 
our human fondness for kisses. On our way home 
in the train last night, we heard, at Carisbrook 
station, of poor old Fieldie’s passing. And, for the 
remainder of the journey, I thought of the kiss that 
I had imprinted upon her forehead earlier in the day, 
and of the kiss that meant so much to Bennie. 
Here, on the one hand, was extreme old age; and 
here, on the other, was a little child. But in one 
respect they are both alike. Is it any wonder that, 
confronted afresh this morning by my foolscap sheet, 
I find its reproach intolerable? How, after such a 
twofold experience as that of yesterday’s, can I 
shirk the task any longer? 


Kisses 245 


And now that I have taken up my pen at last, 
I marvel that I hesitated so long. And that in itself 
raises a curious question. For why did I hesitate? 
Why should any man hesitate before addressing him- 
self to such a theme? Is it because one particular 
kind of kiss has meant so much to most of us that, 
when kisses are mentioned, all other kinds are for- 
gotten? Mr. E. C. Steadman describes a walk home 
from church on a clear winter’s night: 


The snow was crisp beneath our feet, 

The moon was full, the fields were gleaming ; 
By hood and tippet sheltered sweet 

Her face with youth and health was beaming. 


The little hand outside her muff— 

O sculptor, if you could but mould it!— 
So lightly touched my jacket-cuff, 

To keep it warm I had to hold it. 


To have her with me there alone— 
*Twas love and fear and triumph blended; 
At last we reached the foot-worn stone 
Where that delicious journey ended. 


She shook her ringlets from her hood, 
And with a ‘Thank you, Ned,’ dissembled, 
But bet I knew she understood 
With what a daring wish I trembled. 


A cloud passed kindly overhead, 

The moon was slyly peeping through it, 
Yet hid his face, as if it said, 

‘Come, now or never! do it! do it? 


My lips till then had only known 
The kiss of mother and of sister, 
But somehow, full upon her own 
Sweet, rosy, darling mouth—I kissed her! 


Perhaps ’twas boyish love, yet still, 
O listless woman! weary lover! 

To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill, 
I’d give—But who can live youth over? 


246 The Crystal Pointers 


This is excellent, and without such kisses life for 
most people would be very poor. But because such 
kisses are so delicious and so memorable, we must 
not assume that there are no others. A rose is a 
beautiful flower, but we must not let it blind us to 
the other blossoms in the garden. As any concord- 
ance will show at a glance, the Bible is full of 
kisses. But, of all the kisses in the Bible, only one 
belongs to the class to which I have just pointed. 
Obviously, therefore, such kisses do not dominate the 
situation. We must not allow them to intimidate us. 

The Bible is full of kisses because life is full of 
kisses. An infinite wealth of interest and pathos 
gathers about the kisses of history. Some of the 
grimmest and sternest pages in our annals are soft- 
ened and sweetened by a kiss. I have often felt 
that Nelson’s request for a kiss was one of the most 
human and one of the most affecting touches in 
the tremendous drama of Trafalgar’s Bay. We all 
remember Southey’s moving record of those stirring 
events. The battle was practically over: the allied 
fleets were shattered: Hardy, the captain of the 
Victory, returned to the cockpit to congratulate his 
dying chief on the completeness of his triumph. 
Nelson gave him some instructions as to the dis- 
position of the ships, and then, thinking for the first 
time of himself, he said: ‘Don’t throw me over- 
board: bury me with my parents unless the King 
orders otherwise.’ Then looking full into Hardy’s 
face, 


Kisses 247 


‘Kiss me, Hardy!’ said he. 

Hardy knelt down, kissed his cheek, and, a few 
minutes later, left him for ever. 

I like to think of those bronzed sea-dogs kissing 
each other in the hour that decided the destiny of 
Europe. When a man fore-fancies his deathbed, 
he conjures up a picture of a quiet room; he imagines 
himself surrounded by those who love him best; 
he likes to think that mother or wife or daughter 
will hold his hand and smooth his pillow and kiss his 
forehead at the last. For Nelson, there were no 
such gentle attendants and no such tender ministries. 
The ship reeled and staggered as her broadsides were 
poured into her antagonist: the thunder of the guns 
was deafening: those whose soft touch the dying 
man would most have wished to feel were miles and 
miles away. Their fingers could not close his eyes: 
their lips could not press his brow. He thought of 
them wistfully and missed them sadly. 

‘Kiss me, Hardy!’ he murmured. 

And beneath the spell of that substitutionary kiss, 
the greatest sailor since the world began laid down 
his life for England. And any chaplain will tell you, 
once his tongue is loosed, of scores of cases exactly 
like it. In his last agony, many a brave man has 
hungered for the lips that he can never press again, 
and, before closing his eyes for ever, has craved a 
comrade’s kiss. 

The earliest political speech that I remember read- 
ing was a speech about a kiss, and I have read no 


248 The Crystal Pointers 


parliamentary oration since which has moved me as 
much.. It was the speech in which Mr. Gladstone 
announced to the House of Commons the death of 
the Princess Alice. He described the little boy toss- 
ing in the delirium of diphtheria, his mother, the 
Princess, watching. ceaselessly beside his bed. Mr. 
Gladstone told the House how the doctors had 
warned Her Royal Highness on no account to 
inhale the child’s poisoned breath; how she had laid 
her cool hand for a moment on the fevered brow; 
how the child, recognizing his mother, had thrown 
up his arms and cried ‘Kiss me, Mamma, kiss me!’ 
and how the instinct of motherhood had proved 
stronger than the instinct of self-preservation. The 
lips of mother and child met; and the Princess paid 
the penalty with her life. I was only a small boy at 
the time; but the incident made me feel that royalty 
was very human; and I think that my allegiance to 
the throne gathered to itself that day an element of 
kinship by which it was substantially enriched. 
There are, of course, kisses and kisses. ‘There 
are, for example, the kisses that we give a person 
for his own sake and the kisses that we give him 
as the representative of a class. Sir Edwin Arnold 
has a poem in which he describes a visit of Queen 
Alexandra to the Children’s Hospital. One little 
fellow threw his arms around Her Majesty’s neck 
and kissed her. The Queen made no secret of her 
pleasure, and, as soon as she had recovered from 
her surprise, she stooped and kissed the child in 


Kisses 249 


return. In the last verse of his poem, Sir Edwin 
refers to all the suffering children of the empire, 
and then, addressing the little fellow who felt the 
Queen’s embrace, he says that ‘she kissed them all in 
kissing you.’ Precisely! Therein lies the federal 
value of a kiss. 

There is a law of life which ordains that, the 
higher we lift a thing, the greater is the damage if 
it falls. It is just because a kiss may be so sublime 
a thing that it may be, also, so sinister a thing. 

A formal kiss! Is there anything in life as 
insipid as a formal kiss? And yet even a formal 
kiss does not sound the lowest depth of degradation. 
For, every day, summer and winter, somebody, 
somewhere, betrays the Son of Man; and it is 
always, always, always by a kiss that he does it. 


VII 
THE NOONDAY GHOST 


I 


It was black as pitch. John Broadbanks and I 
were driving home from a service at Diamond 
Creek. We had hoped for a moonlight journey; 
but the sky was enveloped in dense clouds. 

‘We shall have to trust Brownie to keep us in 
the middle of the road,’ said John, craning forward 
and peering into the darkness on both sides, ‘I can’t 
see a thing!’ 

A few minutes later, we plunged into a long 
straight avenue of blue-gums, and could just make 
out their tall tops silhouetted against a patch of 
paler cloud. 

‘It reminds you of the dark avenues you read of 
in the old-fashioned novels,’ laughed John; ‘if ever 
you take it into your head to write a ghost-story, 
you must lay the scene of it just here! It’s dark 
enough and lonely enough for all the spectres in 
creation.’ 

‘I shall do nothing of the kind,’ I replied. ‘The 
ghost in the dark carriage-drive is, as you yourself 
suggest, a trifle threadbare. I mean to write a ghost- 
story one of these days; but I propose to break away 

250 


The Noonday Ghost 251 


from the traditional setting. Instead of appearing 
in a lonely grove at dead of night, my ghost will 
come gliding along the pathway at high noon. The 
sun will be ‘shining; the birds will be singing; 
people will be going hither and thither about their 
business, when all at once—enter, the Ghost! 

John laughed so loudly that he started a more- 
pork up on the hill-side, and its weird cry followed 
us until we were out of the grove of gums. But, 
although he treated the matter as an excellent joke, 
I was in earnest. I am often astonished at the 
failure of our novelists to see the boundless possi- 
bilities of the idea. I sometimes read the reviews 
of the new novels. The disappointing element about 
them is that they invariably confine their criticism 
to the things that the author has put into the book. 
They seldom or never draw attention to the things 
that the author has left out of the book. And that is 
where the fault usually lies. If ever I am entrusted 
with the task of reviewing works of fiction, I shall 
consider it my duty to point out, in every such 
critique, the sublime opportunity that the writer has 
missed. ‘This novel is all very well in its way,’ 
I shall say, with a condescending air, “but it might 
have been a masterpiece, a classic—even a_best- 
seller—if only the author had exploited the possi- 
bilities of the Noonday Ghost?’ 

The conception is by no means original. A mortal 
terror froze the blood of our ancestors whenever 
they thought of the Noonday Ghost. For centuries 


252 The Crystal Pointers 


our literature abounded with fearsome references to 
this horrible monstrosity. Indeed, right away back 
in the twilight of modern history, we find Tacitus 
declaring that the Gauls regarded the Noonday Ghost 
as the most dreadful of all apparitions. Has not Dr. 
John Martineau told us how, because of their horror 
of this uncanny visitant, the early Christians regu- 
larly held a prayer meeting at the noontide hour? 
In Russia, too, this weird tradition enjoyed an extra- 
ordinary vogue. And even Shelley somewhere 
describes a party of ladies, merrily chatting together 
in the middle of the day, when their pleasant inter- 
course was rudely interrupted by the sudden appear- 
ance in their midst of this grim and frightful spectre. 
The origin of this fantastic legend is probably lost 
in the mists of antiquity; but, whatever it may have 
been, I am convinced that the Noonday Ghost is not 
entirely the creature of a frenzied fancy. 


It 


For are there no fearful apparitions that appear 
in broad daylight? Are there no phantoms that 
haunt us at noon? Are there no shadowy spectres 
that confront us when the sun is high in the heavens? 
I think there are. Long after the mists of the dawn 
have vanished from the hills, and long before the 
gathering twilight falls upon our path, there are 
ghosts that glide upon us in the day-time, and that 
seek to turn us from our course. In writing of these 
wraiths, I use the plural deliberately; for, like the 


The Noonday Ghost 293 


demons of Gadara, their name is Legion. You have 
only to read the varying descriptions of the strange 
phenomenon, as seen in different ages and in different 
climes, in order to be driven to the conclusion that 
of Noonday Ghosts there are a multitude. Indeed, 
I have collected some first-hand evidence myself, 
and I shall set down here some, ghost-stories that I 
can vouch for as being absolutely authentic. 


Iil 


To my certain knowledge, Cyril Weare has seen 
the Noonday Ghost. Cyril’s unceasing regret is 
that, in his case, life was well advanced before he 
was brought under its best influences. He called 
last night just as I was leaving to attend a social 
evening in connection with our Young People’s 
Study Circle. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘for I specially wanted to 
talk one or two things over with you! 

‘Well, my dear fellow,’ I replied, ‘come with me! 
I merely desire to be present and to show a little 
interest in the young people. . I shall have the whole 
evening on my hands, and you and I will be able 
to chat away to our hearts’ content !’ 

He came; but it was evident that the experience 
was not an enjoyable one. The young folk were 
having all sorts of fun, but he made no effort to 
share it. After an hour’s pleasant conversation he 
prepared to leave. | 

‘Life might have been such a different proposi- 


254 The Crystal Pointers 


tion for me,’ he said, as we shook hands, ‘if my 
young days had been spent in such an atmosphere. 
It’s easy for these young people to live well and do 
well.’ 

I have often tried to reason Cyril into a happier 
mind. His sun is still high in the heavens. His 
powers are at their prime. He has the capacity 
for great achievement; but he has seen the Noonday 
Ghost. It takes the form of a conviction that it is 
too late now for any lofty enterprise. He is full 
of remorse that he did not take himself more ser- 
jously twenty years ago. He reflects morbidly on 
the golden opportunities that once visited him, and 
that he allowed to slip through his fingers. If only 
the shadow on the dial would move for him, as it 
moved for Hezekiah, ten degrees backward, he would 
make something of life. But now—there stands the 
Noonday Ghost! He fancies that it is too late to 
begin. Only those who have seen this horrid spectre 
know how it freezes the blood and paralyses all the 
powers. 

In trying to help Cyril to scare this horrid thing 
away, I have often reminded him that a man of 
his years is younger now than used to be the case. 
I do not know why; but, in spite of all the wear and 
tear, the rush and bustle, of modern conditions, a 
man is much less exhausted at fifty nowadays than 
were his great-great-grandfathers at the same time 
of life. Shakespeare, writing three hundred years 
ago, uses language concerning people of forty that 


The Noonday Ghost 255 


we should only regard as appropriate in reference to 
much older men. 
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow 
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, 


Thy youth’s proud livery so gazed on now 
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held. 


‘I wax now somewhat ancient,’ wrote Bacon to 
Burleigh, in his thirty-second year; ‘one and thirty 
years 1S a great deal of sand in the hourglass!’ I 
quoted Shakespeare. Cowley was born at about the 
time of Shakespeare’s death, and represents, there- 
fore, a new generation, but he employs pretty much 
the same phraseology in defining the period of life 
at which a man begins to grow old. ‘There is no 
fooling with life,’ he says, ‘when it is once turned 
beyond forty.’ The seventeenth century regarded 
life beyond forty as the mere running-out of the 
sands; the eighteenth century thought of the years 
that immediately followed the fortieth as the autumn 
of life; the nineteenth century esteemed a man of 
forty as in the plenitude of his power and on the 
threshold of his usefulness; to the twentieth century 
a man of forty is a boy! Men are entitled to all 
the rights and privileges appertaining to the period 
in which they have the good fortune to be born. 
Cyril should make the most of his. 

Whenever I recall Cyril’s haunted eyes I think 
of the story that the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table 
tells concerning the young farmer who was urged 
by a friend to plant some apple trees. 


256 The Crystal Pointers 


‘No,’ he replied, ‘apple trees are too long grow- 
ing; I can see no sense in planting trees for other 
people’s enjoyment.’ 

The young farmer’s father was spoken to about 
it; but he, with better reason, alleged that apple 
trees were slow .and life was fleeting. At last 
someone mentioned it to the aged grandfather of the 
young farmer. He had nothing else to do; so he 
hobbled off and planted a number of trees. And 
he lived long enough to drink barrels of cider made 
from the apples that grew on them! The old man 
was the only one of the trio who had seen no sign 
of the Noonday Ghost. | 


IV 


Then there’s Ned Andrews. In Ned’s case the 
spectre takes a very, very different form. Ned has 
great gifts, and he means to use them. But he is 
infatuated by the notion that there is plenty of 
time. He is always dreaming of the work that 
he is going to do. He is always planning and pre- 
paring, and equipping himself more perfectly for 
the undertaking! But he never does anything! It 
is a mistake, of course, to begin until you are ready; 
but I am sure that Ned Andrews would develop his 
powers much more rapidly by using them than by 
indulging in an infinite variety of preliminary flour- 
ishes. His anxiety to excel is admirable; the mod- 
esty that makes him feel so keenly his present ineffi- 
ciency is beautiful; but a man may be ruined by his 


The Noonday Ghost 257 


virtues as well as by his vices. It is absurd to say 
that you will never enter the water until you have 
learned to swim. If one never settles down to his 
task until he feels able to execute it perfectly, the 
work will never be done. Ned’s Noonday Ghost 
is scaring him out of his priceless opportunity. Let 
him take off his coat and get to work, and the hor- 
rible thing will vanish! 


V 


But by far the most distressing of all the authentic 
stories known to me of the appearance of this fright- 
ful apparition is the story of Harry Rodwell. The 
Noonday Ghost has scared Harold into a life of 
downright materialism. Since I first interested my- 
self in Harold’s case I have discovered that it is 
by no means an isolated one. The tendency is fairly 
common, It arises partly from that fine and superior 
contempt with which middle-age loves to treat the 
extravagances and enthusiasms of youth, and partly 
from the fear of age and the pressing necessity of 
providing against it. The man who sees this Noon- 
day Ghost drops, in his sudden terror, all the fond , 
fancies of his earlier days and devotes himself with- 
out reserve to money-making and practical con- 
cerns. It was the discovery of this sordid and peri- 
lous propensity that led Schiller to argue that we 
become less spiritual in the central span of life. The 
animal nature, he maintains, dominates the more 
generous qualities; and the least excellent ingre- 


258 The Crystal Pointers 


dients of our humanity prevail. Newman held nearly 
the same view. In early life, he points out, a man 
finds it easy to be unselfish, and will, under the 
spell of some vehement enchantment, fling the world 
away and count that world well lost. ‘But in middle 
life,’ he says, ‘material interests inevitably submerge 
a man’s whole nature into selfish indifference towards 
all with which self is not concerned unless those 
interests are subdued by high religious and moral 
principle.’ 


Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing 


boy. 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 
He sees it in his joy; 
The youth, who daily farther from the east 
Must travel, still is Nature’s priest 
And by the vision splendid 
Is in his way attended; 
At length the man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day. 


Of all the Noonday Ghosts, this, then, is the 
most dangerous. Youth is romantic; Middle-age 
is prosaic. Youth is impulsive; Middle-age is cau- 
tious. Youth is capable of passionate enthusiasms, 
and counts the cost too little; Middle-age is less 
easily swept off its feet, and counts the cost too 
long. Youth is reckless; Middle-age is calculating. 
And so the position is full of peril. I used to think 
that Christ’s solemn words about gaining the whole 
world and losing one’s own soul were addressed 
especially to youth. But I was mistaken. Youth 
may lose its soul thoughtlessly, wildly, gallantly; 


The Noonday Ghost 250 


but Middle-age will do it deliberately and with its 
eyes wide open. Youth is all soul; Middle-age for- 
gets that such a thing exists. To middle-life the 
world seems everything, and success is cheaply 
gained if nothing more than the soul is sacrificed. 
As soon as this screed of mine is printed, I must 
post a copy to John Broadbanks. It will remind 
him of that dark night on which we drove home 
together from Diamond Creek. And it will remind 
him of something immensely more important. It 
will remind him that he and I are in the danger 
zone. Weare on the haunted territory. The Noon- 
day Ghost may startle us into dropping life’s choicest 
treasure. The man to whom this dread spectre 
appears at noonday must grip with a desperate clutch 
those precious things that he once prized so highly, 
but which he is now so sorely tempted to let fall. 


VII 
NEW YEAR’S DAY 


It is New Year’s Day! Last night—a typical Aus- 
tralian midsummer’s night, balmy and starlit—we 
all went out to the Watchnight Service; and, on our 
way home, we heard the bells pealing out their wild 
and joyous welcome to the year that has just arrived. 
I thought of Charles Lamb. The gentle Elia thought 
that the bells were ‘the music nighest bordering on 
Heaven.’ And, of all sounds of all bells, he 
thought none so solemn and touching as the peal 
which rings out the Old Year, ‘I never hear it,’ he 
says, ‘without a gathering-up of my mind to a 
concentration of all the images that have been dif- 
fused over the past twelvemonth; all I have done 
or suffered, performed or neglected, in that regretted 
time. I begin to know its worth, as when a person 
dies. It takes a personal color. We have all 
extended the hospitality of our hearts to just such 
thoughts and feelings. Logically, it is, of course, 
quite unreasonable; perhaps even a trifle absurd. 
There is no more ground for reviewing the past and 
foreshadowing the future on the first of January than 
there is on any other day in the year. The sun 
goes down on December the thirty-first just as it 
260 


New Year’s Day 261 


goes down on other nights; the dawn creeps up on 
the first of January just as it does on other morn- 
ings. The beginning of the year is not one of 
Nature’s festivals. The fixing of a certain date as 
the beginning of the year is purely arbitrary; it is 
like declaring a certain point to be the beginning of 
a circle. Logic laughs at us. But who cares? 

Man is not logical; never was and never will be. 
Logic is his slave, not his lord. He uses it just as 
far as it suits him. His sentiment is invariably 
more commanding than his reason. Years ago I 
knew a brilliant young barrister, Archibald Need- 
ham, the pride and ornament of his profession, His 
face was handsome and finely chiselled, but cold as 
marble. You could never tell, unless he wished you 
to do so, whether he was pleased or disappointed, 
gratified or grieved. He dressed immaculately ; and, 
in his office, sternly insisted upon the most faultlessly 
regular professional habits. He plumed himself on 
his perfect precision. His methods by thought and 
action were all of them dominated by an intellect 
that was as inflexible as a proposition in Euclid and 
as rigid as steel. Yet when, in the evening, he 
reached his beautiful suburban home, and closed the 
door behind him, he would take his baby boy from 
the arms of his charming young wife, bound off 
with him into the dining-room, drop into the great 
arm-chair beside the fire, and chatter away to the 
baby for five minutes without a break. Archie knew 
perfectly well, of course, that the child could not 


262 The Crystal Pointers 


understand a word he said. But, even in him, senti- 
ment was superior to reason and came to its own 
in the end. And, illogically but inevitably, we all 
liked him the better for it. A Scottish writer says 
that Man is neither logical nor illogical; he is ana- 
logical; ‘his mind sweeps forward, not in the rigid 
iron line of the railway excavation, but with the 
curves of a river that follows the solicitation of the 
ground.’ That may be so. But, whether Man be 
illogical or analogical or supralogical, I only know 
that he is not logical. Because Archie Needham is 
not as logical as he thinks he is, he sits there talking 
to the baby; because Charles Lamb is not logical, 
he feels a surge of uncontrollable emotion as he 
listens to the music of the bells; and, because I am 
myself less logical than I sometimes fancy, I am 
writing this screed of mine on New Year’s morning. 
We may assent to the conclusions of the logicians ; 
we may feel as certain as they are that the days of 
the year make up a cycle and that none of them is 
first and none last; but sentiment is too strong for 
us; it persists in clinging fondly to the day that it 
sets aside as the first day and to the day that it 
sets aside as the last day; and, as long as the world 
lasts, New Year’s Day will, in consequence, be 
invested with a character peculiarly its own. 

For, after all, logic is not the only law. In our 
attachment to New Year’s Day we are guided by a 
sure instinct. We are wiser than we know. It is 
essential that we should each enjoy seasons of over- 


New Year’s Day 263 


haul and review. Each individual life is a sublime 
experiment. Each personality on the planet is a 
novelty; it is absolutely unique; nothing like it has 
ever appeared before. Life’s highest attainment lies 
in making the best of ourselves. But it is not easy. 
Each man is like a pioneer fighting his way through 
an unexplored continent. Nobody else has ever had 
jis life to live: and nobody else’s experience can, 
therefore, serve as a guide-book for his own journey. 
It is all very well to write books on Life and How 
to Live It; such a volume is useless to me; and the 
reasons that make it useless to me make it useless, 
also, to everybody else. I want a book on My Own 
Life and How to Live It. It must begin with my 
own birth, and it must end with my own death, and 
it must have my own photograph as its frontis- 
piece. And, because nobody on earth is able to 
write it, and nobody, save myself, would wish to 
read it, such a volume has never been published, 
and never will be. There is no Handbook for 
Tourists on the greatest journey of all. Like the 
explorer, | must find my way as I go along. This 
being so, it follows that it will be of immense value 
to me to stand occasionally on some lofty eminence 
from the heights of which I can survey the country 
that I have already traversed and map out for myself 
a path through the unknown territory that lies still 
before me. It may be that I shall decide to retrace 
my steps to some extent in order to avoid insuper- 
able obstacles that, from this hill-top, I can descry; 


264 The Crystal Pointers 


or it may be that I shall see the wisdom of deviating 
slightly from the direction which, heretofore, I have 
so steadily pursued. Many of our steps, and espe- 
cially our earlier steps, are taken at haphazard. We 
‘are working in the dark. We drift into occupa- 
tions, and we settle in localities, on the spur of a 
passing whim or at the dictate of the merest chance. 
We follow the line of the least resistance and are 
astonished at finding ourselves where we are and 
what we are. In the nature of things, many of these 
fitful and fugitive movements must be more or less 
mistaken. We have stumbled into a path that is, 
if no worse, only second-best. It is just as well that, 
at certain times, we should have the opportunity of 
looking back and looking forward and looking 
round. Even though we see no reason for retracing 
our steps or changing our course, we resume our 
journey with the greater confidence and satisfac- 
tion. We have at least taken our bearings, seen life 
steadily and seen it whole. | 

Moreover, it is essential that I should have stated 
times at which I can take myself to pieces and sort 
myself out. In each of our skins there is a Dy. 
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—together with a lot more 
people. A recent writer has said that the trouble 
with Mr. Bernard Shaw is that there are two Ber- 
nard Shaws, and that they do not get on very well 
with one another. Bernard Shaw, the mystic, chants 
solemn hymns in praise of the Life-Force, and calls 
all mankind to worship in her temple. But when 


New Year’s Day 265 


the worshippers enter the temple they find Bernard 
Shaw, the realist, delivering a lecture on the short- 
comings of the goddess, who is really the Mother of 
Humbug, and who is responsible for the romantic 
glamor he hates so much. ‘One might,’ this writer 
goes on to say, “develop this idea in an imaginary 
dialogue between the saintly Bernard and the cynical 
Shaw. Bernard is a kind of Jacob Boehme; his 
brother Shaw is a kind of Tom Paine; and they are 
everlastingly bickering. It is not the fact that he 
is both a mystic and a realist, but the fact that 
in him the mystic and the realist are never recon- 
ciled, that keeps Mr. Shaw from the station he 
aspires to among the great teachers of humanity.’ 
Assuming that Mr. Shaw’s critic has accurately sum- 
marized the situation, he has only proved that Mr. 
Shaw is in the same dilemma as the rest of us. Each 
of us, I said just now, finds within his skin Dr. 
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde—together with a lot more 
people. 

For every man is a mob. Those who, like Mr. 
Bernard Shaw and Stevenson’s famous hero, have 
only two personalities to deal with, are to be con- 
gratulated on the simplicity of their problem. 
Human existence involves a network of intricacies. 
During the first half of life, men’s interests tend to 
broaden and multiply; during the second half, they 
tend to become fewer and to contract. The difficulty, 
during both processes, is to keep things in their 
proper places. Take the case of Stephen Graham. 


266 The Crystal Pointers 


Stephen is a member and an office-bearer of the 
Clittingham Church; he is therefore distinctly a 
religious man. He is the proprietor of the Clit- 
tingham Hill Iron Foundry; he is therefore a 
prominent commercial man. In his stately home 
at High Peak you may find him of an evening hap- 
pily surrounded by his wife and bairns; Stephen is 
essentially a family man. He recognizes his duty 
in relation to public affairs, is an esteemed and 
honored citizen, and has twice been Mayor of Clit- 
tingham. He is very keen on golf, and is, there- 
fore, a sportsman. He is the Vice-President of the 
Shakespearean Society and likes to be thought a liter- 
ary man. And there are minor interests arising 
from his love of roses, his social qualities, and the 
like. Anybody can see at a glance that, within the 
skin of Stephen Graham, there are not only two 
Stephen Grahams but a crowd. To live so many- 
sided a life—and most lives are many-sided— 
requires skilful management. Each of these Stephen 
Grahams grows a little or dwindles a little every year; 
and those that grow grow at the expense of those 
that dwindle. Unless, therefore, this growing and 
dwindling be watched and, if needs be, checked, any 
one of these Stephen Grahams may grow so great, 
and the others so small, that the one will absorb 
and obliterate all the rest. Some fine morning one 
of these Stephen Grahams will find himself so 
gigantic, and the others so dwarfish, that he will put 
them all in his pocket and walk off with them. We 


New Year’s Day 267 


shall look for the religious Stephen Graham and the 
domestic Stephen Graham and the literary Stephen 
Graham and the sporting Stephen Graham, but we 
shall not find them; we shall see only the huge form 
of the commercial Stephen Graham striding away 
in the distance and we shall have to guess the rest. 
Or it may be that the commercial Stephen Graham 
will sink to insignificance because some other 
Stephen Graham has captured a dominating. place. 
Such things do happen. And the beauty of New 
Year’s Day is that it gives Stephen Graham the oppor- 
tunity of comparing each of his numerous Stephen 
Grahams with all the other Stephen Grahams; of 
marking the extent to which each has grown or 
dwindled during the year; and of taking the neces- 
sary steps to secure that each Stephen Graham shall 
be of proper size and occupy his proper place. The 
girders must not be allowed to crush the life out of 
life’s gentler and lovelier things. Stocktaking is a 
very important process. It is good for me once a 
year to turn my personality over; to sort it out; 
and to see exactly how I stand. 

It is, however, one thing to take our bearings and 
another thing to shape our destinies. The degree 
to which we actually profit by the wisdom gained 
in our annual review depends, in many cases, on 
the stage of life that we have reached. As the 
years roll on, we feel an increasing repugnance to 
change. We like to follow the familiar road, to go 
on in the same old way. Life does not, however, 


268 The Crystal Pointers 


start on that principle. Childhood revels in change; 
and, in youth, variety is still charming. A young 
man will change his profession with a lighter heart 
than that with which an old man will move into the 
next street. It is for this reason that the good 
resolutions of youth—the resolutions that generally 
spring into being with the arrival of the New Year— 
are so often stillborn. They come to nothing. They 
are made too easily. Things that are made easily 
are made plentifully, and are, as a rule, of small 
value. In youth we resolve airily. We will, we 
promise ourselves, make our mistakes no more. We 
will realize all our ideals. The virtues shall spring 
up in our lives like mushrooms on a misty morning; 
the vices shall vanish as though a cloud of locusts 
had devoured them in a night. As a programme, 
this is perfect; but the trouble is that it never gets 
any further. And it never gets any further for 
the simple reason that it is so shockingly overloaded. 
We do protest too much. Was it not Thomas a 
Kempis who said that if every man would set to 
work to cultivate one new virtue, or weed out one 
old vice, each year, he would be a saint in no time? 
But youth is impatient; it cannot wait for seeds 
to grow; it must transform everything and trans- 
form it immediately. The programme is prepos- 
terous; and, as a consequence, it collapses of its 
own weight. 

But, if youth is too ready for change, maturity 
is too reluctant. Many a man, in reviewing life at 


New Year’s Day 269 


the end of the year, sees changes that really ought 
to be made, but he persuades himself that it is too 
late to make them. Old dogs, he says, cannot learn 
new tricks. But can’t they? Longfellow lived in the 
plastic and formative period of American history. 
He was impressed by the fact that great numbers 
of men, in contemplating the erection of the fabric 
of the nation’s greatness, saw things that ought to 
be made, but pleaded that it was too late in life for 
them to undertake the work. And, in stinging 
rebuke, he wrote: 

It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late 

Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate. 

Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles 

Wrote his grand Adipus, and Simonides 

Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers, 

When each had numbered more than four-score years; 

And Theophrastus at four-score and ten 

Had but begun his ‘Characters of Men.’ 

Chaucer at Woodstock, with the nightingales, 

At sixty wrote the ‘Canterbury Tales.’ 


Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, 
Completed ‘Faust’ when eighty years were past. 


Wherefore, let the young man make his New 
Year resolution—one and no more—and let him 
make it fearfully! 

And let the old man make his New Year reso- 
lution—one at least—and let him make it fearlessly! 

And, as surely as New Year’s Morning follows 
Old Year’s Night, each shall find there is grace 
enough in Heaven to transmute his January dream 
into a June reality. 


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